Pantheism, Panentheism, and Ecosophy: Getting Back to Spinoza?

Zygon 57 (3):545-563 (2022)
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Abstract

Many authors in the field of Environmental Philosophy have claimed to be inspired by Spinoza's monism, which has traditionally been considered a form of pantheism because nature and God coincide. This idea has deep normative implications, as some environmental ethicists claim that wounding nature is the same as wounding God, which implies a resacralization of nature. In particular, we will focus on Arne Næss's Ecosophy (or Deep Ecology) to offer a current relevant example of the pantheist (or panentheist) worldview. However, a new demarcation distinguishes pantheism from panentheism; in the latter, nature and God belong together but do not fully coincide, as in pantheism. Nevertheless, whether Spinoza is a panentheist, pantheist, or neither has yet to be fully determined, as well as whether his doctrine serves as a proper foundation for an ecology that attempts the aforementioned resacralization of nature. This article attempts to clarify these issues.

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References found in this work

Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. A summary.Arne Naess - 1973 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 16 (1-4):95 – 100.
Acosmism or weak individuals?: Hegel, Spinoza, and the reality of the finite.Yitzhak Y. Melamed - 2009 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 48 (1):pp. 77-92.
On the relationship between mode and substance in Spinoza's metaphysics.John Peter Carriero - 1995 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (2):245-273.

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