The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important for a number of reasons. If, as some have suggested, there are no ecological laws, this would seem to distinguish ecology from other branches of science, such as physics. It could also make a difference to the methodology of ecology. If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of useful models. These models (...) would need to be assessed for their empirical adequacy but not for their ability to capture fundamental truths, or the like. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this prompts further questions about what these laws are and why even the best candidates for ecological laws fall short of what might be expected of laws. (shrink)

Ecologists typically invoke "law-like" generalizations, ranging over "structural" and/or "functional" kinds, in order to explain generalizations about "historical" kinds (such as biological taxa)rather than vice versa. This practice is justified, since structural and functional kinds tend to correlate better with important ecological phenomena than do historical kinds. I support these contentions with three recent case studies. In one sense, therefore, ecology is, and should be, more nomothetic, or law-oriented, than idiographic, or historically oriented. This conclusion challenges several recent philosophical (...) claims about the nature of ecological science. (shrink)

The applied discipline of agroecological design provides a useful case study for examining broader philosophical questions about the existence and importance of ecological generalizations or “laws.” Recent developments in the availability and use of formal meta-analyses have led to the discovery of many resilient generalizations in ecology. However, these “laws” face numerous challenges when it comes to their practical application. Concerns about their reliability and scope might stem from unclear logical and epistemic connections to more foundational or (...) “unifying” generalizations, 2019) which, in ecology, tend to be derived from first principles and in association with highly abstract models. This raises questions about the nature of those foundational generalizations themselves. In particular, how resilient are they compared to the generalizations uncovered by empirically driven methods? Here we propose a procedure for evaluating the resilience of generalizations across five ecologically relevant dimensions. This procedure was applied to seven well known foundational generalizations in ecology. Surprisingly, it turned out to be impossible to estimate the resilience of these foundational generalizations based on the available literature. This points to the need for a more centralized repository of information about ecological generalizations, created with the explicit aim of evaluating such important dimensions as causal mechanism and predictive power. (shrink)

Ecology's reputation as a holistic science is partly due to widespread misconceptions of its nature as well as shortcomings in its methodology. This article argues that the pursuit of empirical laws of ecology can foster the emergence of a more unified and predictive science based on complementary modes of explanation. Numerical analyses of population dynamics have a distinguished pedigree, spatial analyses generate predictive laws of macroecology, and physical analyses are typically pursued by the ecosystem paradigm. The most characteristically (...) ecological laws, however, are found in biotic analyses in the functional trait paradigm. Holistic credentials for ecology may thus be restored on two bases: its accommodating complementary modes of analysis and explanation, and its having some laws within the least reductionistic mode consistent with its subject matter. These claims, grounded in the aspectual theory of Herman Dooyeweerd, lead to some suggestions for enhancing the versatility and usefulness of ecology—and other sciences—by balancing different research paradigms under a holistic vision. (shrink)

Sagoff (2016) criticizes widely used “theoretical” methods in ecology; arguing that those methods employ models that rely on problematic metaphysical assumptions and are therefore uninformative and useless for practical decision-making. In this paper, I show that Sagoff misconstrues how such model-based methods work in practice, that the main threads of his argument are problematic, and that his substantive conclusions are consequently unfounded. Along the way, I illuminate several ways the model-based inferential methods he criticizes can be, and have been, usefully (...) informative. (shrink)

The call by Chinese environmentalists for an ecological civilization to supersede industrial civilization, subsequently embraced by the Chinese government and now being promoted throughout the world, makes new demands on legal systems, national and international. If governments are going to prevent ecological destruction then law will be essential to this. The Chinese themselves have recognized grave deficiencies in their legal institutions. They are reassessing these and looking to Western traditions for guidance. Yet law as it has developed in (...) the West, particularly in Anglophone countries, which has crystallized as the tradition of ‘liberal legalism’, is in a state of crisis. Rather than being taken as a cause for despair at the legal traditions of East and West, this challenge could be taken as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the basis of the law and its role in society and civilization. To overcome the deficiencies in the theory and practice of law in so-called ‘liberal democracies’ I will argue here that it will be necessary to revive and develop the philosophies of law associated with the ‘Radical Enlightenment’. (shrink)

Niklas Luhmann is widely recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the social sciences today. This major new work further develops the theories of the author by offering a challenging analysis of the relationship between society and the environment. Luhmann extends the concept of "ecology" to refer to any analysis that looks at connections between social systems and the surrounding environment. He traces the development of the notion of "environment" from the medieval idea--which encompasses both human and natural (...) systems--to our modern definition, which separates social systems from the external environment. In Luhmann's thought, human beings form part of the environment, while social systems consist only of communications. Utilizing this distinctive theoretical perspective, Luhmann presents a comprehensive catalog of society's reactions to environmental problems. He investigates the spheres of the economy, law, science, politics, religion, and education to show how these areas relate to environmental issues. Ecological Communication is an important work that critically examines claims central to our society--claims to modernity and rationality. It will be of great importance to scholars and students in sociology, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and law. (shrink)

In the first edition of Radical Ecology --the now classic examination major philosophical, ethical, scientific, and economic roots of environmental problems--Carolyn Merchant responded to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevailed in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In this provocative and readable study, Merchant examined the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet. Now in this second edition, Merchant continues to emphasize how laws, regulations and scientific (...) research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. Merchant argues that in order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific, and spiritual approaches that will fundamentally transform human relationships with nature. She analyzes the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists for a new economy, society, science, and religion, and examines their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public. This new edition features a new Introduction from the author, a thorough updating of chapters, and two entirely new chapters on recent global movements and globalization and the environment. It is a timely update that will give students everything they need to know on the most recent philosophical positions and social movements that characterize the radical ecology spectrum. (shrink)

In a (2016) paper in this journal, I defuse allegations that theoretical ecological research is problematic because it relies on teleological metaphysical assumptions. Mark Sagoff offers a formal reply. In it, he concedes that I succeeded in establishing that ecologists abandoned robust teleological views long ago and that they use teleological characterizations as metaphors that aid in developing mechanistic explanations of ecological phenomena. Yet, he contends that I did not give enduring criticisms of theoretical ecology a fair shake (...) in my paper. He says this is because enduring criticisms center on concerns about the nature of ecological networks and forces, the instrumentality of ecological laws and theoretical models, and the relation between theoretical and empirical methods in ecology that that paper does not broach. Below I set apart the distinct criticisms Sagoff presents in his commentary and respond to each in turn. (shrink)

When the famine in Shansi was over, and I began to consider the reasons of it, I felt I must study the causes of human suffering, not only in China but in all the world. In pondering Western civilization I felt that its advantage over Chinese civilization was due to the fact that it sought to discover the workings of God in Nature, and to apply the laws of Nature for the service of mankind. This was in obedience to (...) God's command to Adam to have dominion over all things. In ap plying the laws of science to the needs of man, Western nations had made marvellous inventions that were little less wonderful than miracles. (shrink)

We lay the foundations for a critical human ecology that combines the strengths of the biophysical human ecology tradition in environmental sociology with those of historical materialism. We show the strengths of a critically informed human ecology by addressing four key meta-theoretical issues: materialist versus idealist approaches in the social sciences, dialectical versus reductionist analyses, the respective importance of historical and ahistorical causal explanations, and the difference between structural and functional interpretations of phenomena. CHE breaks with the idealism of Western (...) Marxism, which dominated academic neo-Marxist thought in the latter half of the 20th century, and advocates instead the pursuit of a materialist, scientific methodology in dialectical perspective for the explanation of social and ecological change. In turn, this project also involves a critique of the ahistorical and functionalist tendencies of traditional human ecology, while sharing human ecology 's basic starting point: the ecological embeddedness of human societies. (shrink)

_Contributions to Law, Philosophy and Ecology: Exploring Re-Embodiments_ is a preliminary contribution to the establishment of re-embodiments as a theoretical strand within legal and ecological theory and philosophy. Re-embodiments are all those contemporary practices and processes that exceed the epistemic horizon of modernity. As such, they offer a plurality of alternative modes of theory and practice that seek to counteract the ecocidal tendencies of the Anthropocene. The collection is comprised of eleven contributions approaching re-embodiments from a multiplicity of fields, (...) including legal theory, eco-philosophy, eco-feminism and anthropology. The contributions are organized in three parts, ‘Beyond Modernity, ‘The Sacred Dimension’ and ‘The Legal Dimension’. The collection is opened by a comprehensive introduction that situates re-embodiments in theoretical context. Whilst closely bound with embodiment and new materialist theory, this book_ _contributes a unique voice that echoes diverse political processes contemporaneous to our times. Written in an elegant and accessible language, the book will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates and established scholars alike seeking to understand and take re-embodiments further, both politically and theoretically. (shrink)

There has been a significant amount of uncertainty and controversy over the prospects for general knowledge in ecology. Environmental decision makers have begun to despair of ecology's capacity to provide anything more than case by case guidance for the shaping of environmental policy. Ecologists themselves have become suspicious of the pursuit of the kind of genuine nomothetic knowledge that appears to be the hallmark of other scientific domains. Finally, philosophers of biology have contributed to this retreat from generality by suggesting (...) that there really are no laws in biology. This paper addresses these issues by providing a framework for thinking about general knowledge claims in ecology. It introduces a philosophical taxonomy that classifies generalizations into three broad categories – phenomenological, causal and theoretical. It then turns to the difficult problem of laws, arguing that, while there are probably no laws as that term has been understood in philosophy of science, it doesn't follow that everything in ecology is equally contingent. A mechanism for recognizing degrees of contingency in ecological generalizations is developed. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the analysis for the controversies noted at the outset. (shrink)

This book examines the relationship between environmental and democratic thought and the apparent compatibility of ecology and democracy. Although environmental politics is quite rightly seen as a progressive force, it has also featured a strand of extreme right "eco-authoritarianism" and its proponents have sometimes developed controversial positions on such issues as population policy. There have also been a number of situations where radical environmental activists have broken the laws of democratic societies in pursuit of ecological objectives and the (...) book examines this in a number of case studies on biotechnology, genetic engineering and biodiversity. This is a significant contribution to the literature on environmental politics, ecological thought and democracy. (shrink)

The laws of physics, because they are cast in terms of homogeneous variables, fall short of determining outcomes in heterogeneous biological systems that are capable of an immense number of combinatoric changes. The universal laws are not violated and they continue to constrain, but specification of results is accomplished instead by stable configurations of processes that develop in a nonrandom, but indeterminate manner. The indeterminacy of physical laws puts an end to Deist speculations and necessitates an alternative (...) to the mechanical-reductionistic metaphor for nature. An antithetical Heraclitan metaphysics, called ‘Process Ecology,’ entails a dialectic between centripetal creation and centrifugal decay in which nature, humanity and the Divine can all potentially participate. The dialectic can be quantified and tracked using information measures applied to networks of processes to allow for the statement and testing of falsifiable hypotheses. Creation no longer appears as an emergent enigma, but rather as a core phenomenon of Process Ecology that allows for free will, Divine intervention, intercessory prayer and a necessary tolerance for petty evil. No longer is ‘heat death’ the inevitable and only endpoint of the cosmos. Rather, the course of the universe may include as well the production of ‘perpetual harmonies’ akin to Teilhard’s ‘Omega Point.’. (shrink)

To generate explanatory theory, ecologists must wrestle with how to represent the extremely many, diverse causes behind phenomena in their domain. Early twentieth-century plant ecologists Frederic E. Clements and Henry A. Gleason provide a textbook example of different approaches to explaining vegetation, with Clements allegedly committed, despite abundant exceptions, to a law of vegetation, and Gleason denying the law in favor of less organized phenomena. However, examining Clements's approach to explanation reveals him not to be expressing a law, and instead (...) to be developing an explanatory structure without laws, capable of progressively integrating causal complexity. Moreover, Clements and Gleason largely agree on the causes of vegetation; but, since causal understanding here underdetermines representation, they differ on how to integrate recognized causes into general theory---that is, in their methodologies. Observers of the case may have mistakenly assumed that scientific representation across the disciplines typically aims at laws like Newton's, and that representations always reveal scientists' metaphysical commitments. Ironically, in the present case, this assumption seems to have been made even by observers who regard Clements as naı¨ve for his alleged commitment to an ecological law. (shrink)

Throughout history, anthropologists have confronted a number of uncomfortable truths around the supposed nature of reality. The anthropological maxim, "through the study of others we learn more about ourselves" has been sorely tested en route. Arguably, this challenge reached culmination during the 1970s and 80s, with several prominent social commentators from Geertz to Clifford suggesting that anthropologists had, in both past and present, been much more concerned with the study of 'others' than of 'ourselves'. In essence, this reflexive critique suggested (...) that ethnographers were in the business of writing fiction and more insidiously came to the field equipped with a set of assumptions and presuppositions about the world in all its variety. These universal verities functioned to reduce all subjects of study into conformity with the observer's sense of what was real and of import and what was not and inconsequential. (shrink)

This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris paribus laws is discussed and it is argued that such procedures (...) are possible in the social sciences. The article ends by arguing that at least some social research is roughly as well as confirmed as good work in evolutionary biology and ecology. (shrink)

Cognition means different things to different psychologists depending on the position held on the mind-matter problem. Ecological psychologists reject the implied mind-matter dualism as an ill-posed theoretic problem because the assumed mind-matter incommensurability precludes a solution to the degrees of freedom problem. This fundamental problem was posed by both Nicolai Bernstein and James J. Gibson independently. It replaces mind-matter dualism with animal-environment duality -- a better posed scientific problem because commensurability is assured. Furthermore, when properly posed this way, a (...) conservation law is suggested that encompasses a psychology of transactional systems, a biology of self-actional systems, and a physics of interactional systems. For such a solution, a theory of cognition for goal-directed behaviour is needed. A sketch is supplied for how such a theory might be pursued in the spirit of the new physics of evolving complex systems. (shrink)

This article serves as an introduction to the laws-of-biology debate. After introducing the main issues in an introductory section, arguments for and against laws of biology are canvassed in Section 2. In Section 3, the debate is placed in wider epistemological context by engaging a group of scholars who have shifted the focus away from the question of whether there are laws of biology and toward offering good accounts of explanation(s) in the biological sciences. Section 4 introduces (...) two relatively new pieces of science – metabolic scaling theory and ecological stoichiometry – that have not been topics of much discussion by philosophers but are relevant because they have at least some of the hallmarks of laws of nature. Section 5 concludes by pointing out that discovering laws of biology, if any there be, will not necessarily answer the questions raised by the debate in the first place: we will still want to know how biology compares to other sciences, how to characterize its systems and processes, and whether accounts in terms of laws always or usually constitute adequate explanations in various sciences. (shrink)

The question of whether there are laws of nature in ecology has developed substantially in the last 20 years. Many have attempted to rehabilitate ecology’s lawlike status through establishing that ecology possesses laws that robustly appear across many different ecological systems. I argue that there is still something missing, which explains why so many have been skeptical of ecology’s lawlike status. Community ecology has struggled to establish what I call a General Unificatory Theory. The lack of a (...) GUT causes problems for explanation as there are no guidelines for how to integrate the lower-level mathematical and causal models into a larger theory of how ecological assemblages are formed. I turn to a promising modern attempt to provide a unified higher-level explanation in ecology, presented by ecologist Mark Vellend, and advocate for philosophical engagement with its prospects for aiding ecological explanation. (shrink)

Phenomenological resources can be used to develop a nonanthropocentric theory of ecological values that gives rise to an obligation for moral agents. There is logical space in Edmund Husserl’s early theory of value that is inclusive of nonhuman animals and vegetation as members of a life community possessing ecological characteristics. Within this legal space is a characterization of ecological obligation that is not tied to any single moral law, as it is in deontological ethics and utilitarianism, but (...) founded on the complex value nexus of a given ecological community. Rather than judging the “rightness” or “wrongness” of actions on the law-based and single-rule philosophical theories of normativity found in modern humanism, this Husserlian inspired account locates a conception of ecological obligation that is immanent to the values operative in a given environing world. This particular experience of ecological obligation arises when the valuation of the goods of individual members of the ecological community conflict with one another and the weighing of these competing goods is appropriately accomplished in light of a communal good. (shrink)

Although much recent social science and humanities work has been a revolt against simplification, this volume explores the contrast between simplicity and complexity to reveal that this dichotomy, itself, is too simplistic. John Law and Annemarie Mol have gathered a distinguished panel of contributors to offer—particularly within the field of science studies—approaches to a theory of complexity, and at the same time a theoretical introduction to the topic. Indeed, they examine not only ways of relating to complexity but complexity _in (...) practice._ Individual essays study complexity from a variety of perspectives, addressing market behavior, medical interventions, aeronautical design, the governing of supranational states, ecology, roadbuilding, meteorology, the science of complexity itself, and the psychology of childhood trauma. Other topics include complex wholes in the sciences, moral complexity in seemingly amoral endeavors, and issues relating to the protection of African elephants. With a focus on such concepts as multiplicity, partial connections, and ebbs and flows, the collection includes narratives from Kenya, Great Britain, Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands, France, and the meetings of the European Commission, written by anthropologists, economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and scholars of science, technology, and society. _Contributors._ Andrew Barry, Steven D. Brown, Michel Callon, Chunglin Kwa, John Law, Nick Lee, Annemarie Mol, Marilyn Strathern, Laurent Thévenot, Charis Thompson. (shrink)

In proposing that their model can operate in the concrete, perceptual world, Rogers & McClelland (R&M) have not done justice to the complexities of the ecological sphere and its invariance laws. The structure of concrete events forces a different framework, both for retrieval of events and concepts defined across events, than that upon which the proposed model, rooted in essence in the verbal learning tradition, implicitly rests.

How are scientific explanations possible in ecology, given that there do not appear to be many—if any—ecological laws? To answer this question, I present and defend an account of scientific causal explanation in which ecological generalizations are explanatory if they are invariant rather than lawlike. An invariant generalization continues to hold or be valid under a special change—called an intervention—that changes the value of its variables. According to this account, causes are difference-makers that can be intervened upon (...) to manipulate or control their effects. I apply the account to ecological generalizations to show that invariance under interventions as a criterion of explanatory relevance provides interesting interpretations for the explanatory status of many ecological generalizations. Thus, I argue that there could be causal explanations in ecology by generalizations that are not, in a strict sense, laws. I also address the issue of mechanistic explanations in ecology by arguing that invariance and modularity constitute such explanations. (shrink)

This work applies the competitive exclusion principle and the concept of potential competitors as simple axiomatic tools to generalized situations in ecology. These tools enable apparent competition and its dual counterpart to be explicitly evaluated in poorly understood ecological systems. Within this set-theory framework we explore theoretical symmetries and invariances, De Morgan’s laws, frozen evolutionary diversity and virtual processes. In particular, we find that the exclusion principle compromises the geometrical growth of the number of species. By theoretical extending (...) this principle, we can describe interspecific depredation in the dual case. This study also briefly considers the debated situation of intraspecific competition. The ecological consequences of our findings are discussed; particularly, the use of our framework to reinterpret coupled mathematical differential equations describing certain ecological processes. (shrink)

The further scholarship investigates life forms the less those forms can be said to have a single, independent and lasting identity. The further scholarship delves into texts the less they too can be said to have a single, independent and lasting identity. This similarity is not simply an analogy. Life forms cannot be said to differ in a rigorous way from texts. On many levels and for many reasons, deconstruction and ecology should talk to one another. It is interesting to (...) contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. (shrink)

Neo-Humanist Luc Ferry (1995) has compared deep ecology's declarations of intrinsic value in nature to the Third Reich's nature protection laws, which prohibit maltreatment of animals having "worth in themselves." Ferry's questionable approach fails to document the relationship between Nazi environmentalism and Nazi racism. German high art and mass media historically presented nature as dualistic, and portrayed Untermenschen as unnatural or inorganic. Nazi propaganda excluded Jews from nature, and identified traditional Jews as cruel to animals. Ferry's idealization of Humanism (...) under reports the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in European thought, including the French Enlightenment. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. (shrink)

Calls for new forms of representation to protect the interests of future generations and non-human species have become common among green theorists. Examining these proposals critically, this article finds, first, that 'ecological representation' contradicts the virtues traditionally associated with representative government: creating a circuit of legitimacy between voters and political authorities; preventing abuses of power; keeping law neutral with respect to the worth of competing values. It concludes, second, that our environmental predicament is not essentially the fault of inadequate (...) representation. The logic of representation itself is part of the problem. Ecological democrats must look to other participatory models. (shrink)

Philosophical analysis of ecological theories has lagged behind the study of evolutionary theory. The semantic conception of scientific theories, which has been employed successfully in the analysis of evolutionary theory, is adopted here to analyse ecological theory. Two general problems in ecology are discussed. One arises from the continued use of covering law models in ecology, and the other concerns the applicability of ecological theory in conservation biology. The semantic conception of ecological theories is used to (...) resolve these problems. (shrink)

Considers that in ecosystem, landscape and global ecology, an energetics reading of ecological systems is an expression of a cybernetic, systemic and holistic approach. In ecosystem ecology, the Odumian paradigm emphasizes the concept of emergence, but it has not been accompanied by the creation of a method that fully respects the complexity of the objects studied. In landscape ecology, although the emergentist, multi-level, triadic methodology of J.K. Feibleman and D.T. Campbell has gained acceptance, the importance of emergent properties is (...) still undervalued. In global ecology, the Gaia hypothesis is an expression of an organicist metaphor, while the emergentist terminology used is incongruent with the underlying physicalist cybernetics. More generally, an analytico-additional methodology and the reduction of the properties of ecosystems to the laws of physical chemistry render purely formal any assertion about the emergentist and holistic nature of the ecological systems studied. (shrink)

Philosophical analysis of ecological theories has lagged behind the study of evolutionary theory. The semantic conception of scientific theories, which has been employed successfully in the analysis of evolutionary theory, is adopted here to analyse ecological theory. Two general problems in ecology are discussed. One arises from the continued use of covering law models in ecology, and the other concerns the applicability of ecological theory in conservation biology. The semantic conception of ecological theories is used to (...) resolve these problems. (shrink)

Rates of firearm injury and mortality are far higher in the United States compared to other high-income nations. Patterns of firearm injury have complex causal pathways; different social contexts may be differentially affected by firearm legislation. In the context of the diversity of social, political, and legal approaches at the state level, we suggest the application of the social ecological model as a conceptual public health framework to guide future policy interventions in the U.S.

Special science generalizations admit of exceptions. Among the class of non-exceptionless special science generalizations, I distinguish minutis rectis generalizations from the more familiar category of ceteris paribus generalizations. I argue that the challenges involved in showing that mr generalizations can play the law role are underappreciated, and quite different from those involved in showing that cp generalizations can do so. I outline a strategy for meeting the challenges posed by mr generalizations.

Many ecologists have dismissed alleged ecological laws as tautological or trivial. This essay investigates the epistemological status of one prominent such "law," the population-growth thesis, and argues for 4 claims: (1) Once interpreted, the thesis cannot be denied the status of empirical law on the grounds that it is always and everywhere untestable. (2) Contrary to Peters' (1991) claim, some interpretations of the thesis have significant heuristic power. (3) One can use the reasoning of Brandon (1990), Lloyd (1987), (...) and Sober (1984) to show that some interpretations of the thesis are not a priori. (4) Even if the thesis is a priori, it has explanatory power as a "schematic law.". (shrink)

The contrast between the strategies of research employed in reductionism and holism masks a radical contradiction between two different scientific philosophies. We concentrate in particular on an analysis of the key philosophical issues which give structure to holistic thought. A first (non-exhaustive) analysis of the philosophical tradition will dwell upon: a) the theory of emergence: each level of organisation is characterised by properties whose laws cannot be deduced from the laws of the inferior levels of organisation (Engels, Morgan); (...) b) clarification of the relations between the “whole” and the “parts” (Woodger, Needham); c) the ontological or epistemological nature of the emergent properties; are they a phenomenological reality or solely an artefact of the state of our knowledge? (Pepper, Henle, Hempel and Oppenheim); d) the proposition of the holistic theoretical and methodological model ( Novikoff, Feibleman). I then go on to examine the differences that exist between the reductionist and the holistic approaches at various levels of analysis: that is to say, the differences which affect their ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies respectively. I attempt to understand the spirit of a holistic approach to ecology by analyzing the major work of E.P. Odum Fundamentals of ecology (1953, 1959, 1971). I set forward what might be meant by the “holistic approach”, which is implicated in all the different levels of organisation at which the problem of “complexity” is debated. Ecology presents itself as an “holistic science” and Odum’s book offers a vision of the world which dates far back in the history of philosophy. By looking at the three different editions of this fundamental text on ecology, we may become aware of the evolution of Odum’s thought. In fact, only in the third and last edition is there a conscious appropriation of the holistic approach (by using the theoretical models of Feibleman who, for his part, refers to Novikoff). However, even when formally referring to the theory of emergence (that is to say the ontological nucleus of every holistic approach), Odum’s systemic analysis presents the same logical errors, which push him back into the reductionist domain. Above all, in his examination of the main concepts of “population”, “community” and “ecosystem”, there is a misunderstanding of the profound difference between “collective properties” and “emergent properties”. Moreover, the cybernetic models of Odum’s systemic analysis (introduced into ecology by Margalef), allowed him to vastly oversimplify his methodological task: in fact, neither how many levels nor which levels of organization are fundamental for the study of each individual level is clearly marked. Finally, Odum analyses the ecosystem as composed of energetic flux and cycles of matter, referring to the trophic-dynamic vision of Lindeman. That is to say, in my opinion, he juxtaposes a reductionistic methodology and epistemology to an holistic ontology. (shrink)

Perhaps no concept has been thought more important to ecological theorizing than the niche. Without it, technically sophisticated and well-regarded accounts of character displacement, ecological equivalence, limiting similarity, and others would seemingly never have been developed. The niche is also widely considered the centerpiece of the best candidate for a distinctively ecological law, the competitive exclusion principle. But the incongruous array and imprecise character of proposed definitions of the concept square poorly with its apparent scientific centrality. I (...) argue this definitional diversity and imprecision reflects a problematic conceptual indeterminacy that challenges its putative indispensability in ecology. (shrink)

Ecological humanism is a new broadened form of human ethics that coming into being as an answer to an ecological crisis and an ideology of total consumption. There are two approaches in basing of ecological humanism. The first of them is founded on traditional human values or on anthropocentrism. Milieu is considered as important living conditions that must be conserved with great care but the number of one is man here. The second approach is more radical. It (...) strives to overcome anthropological egoism and is based on Earth-altruism. Its credo can be presented as general weal for all geobiocoenosis. Good is all that helps to preserve integrity, stability and beauty of Earth-community. Stable development can be defined as safeguarding of human living inharmony with ecological systems. As it is well known, 57-th session of UNO announced that 2005-2014 years will be devoted to a program of education for stable development. The Mongolian Government asseverated a national program of ecological education for Mongolia from 1997. Its main object was a forming of common ecological culture for stable development. This program provided:‐ ecological training for common life‐ laying organizing structures and law grounds‐ co-ordinating tacks of stable development with other national projects‐ including ecological knowledge in educational programs.We think also that there is need to elaborate new human ethics that could provide new common living culture for Mongols. There is ecological ethics or ecological humanism that, above all, will remove a tradition of human predominance over nature and establish equality between human beings and animate nature. (shrink)

This article locates a theoretical reflection on the form of legal subjectivity against twenty-first century complexities and pressures, including the structural complexities visible in biotechnological developments, new hybridities and numerous contemporary theoretical and practical manifestations of heterogeneity, multiplicity and complexity emerging in a range of disciplines, including cybernetics, techno-theory, post-humanism and ecology. The author defends the theoretical and critical utility of understanding the legal subject as an explicit (and explicitly limited ) constructus . Criticising the constructed naturalism (and the historical (...) and contemporary exclusions) of the 'human being' of law, the author suggests that the language and concept of the 'legal entity' (rather than that of the 'legal person') draws attention to the patterned 'gap' between law and life (and to related injustices enacted by the form of the materialisation of legal subjectivity) while simultaneously providing the degree of theoretical plasticity now required by the mutable complexities of the twenty-first century and beyond. (shrink)

The prevailing economic paradigm, in which a closed circular flow of production and consumption can be described in terms of 'natural laws ' of the equilibrium of market forces, is being challenged by our growing knowledge of complex systems, particularly ecosystems. It is increasingly apparent that neo-classical economics does not reflect social, economic and environmental realities in a world of limited resources. The best way to understand the problems implicit in the concept of 'sustainable development ' is provided by (...) Ecological Economics – a new synthesis in which the traditional virtue of thrift is justified using modern ideas from systems theory and thermodynamics. (shrink)

Greg Cooper’s The Science of the Struggle for Existence is a must read for those interested in the history and philosophy of ecology and in topics like laws of nature, scientific explanation, and mathematical modeling. If you want to explore some of the metaphysical and methodological challenges that face ecology, there is no better place to go. Thus, this book marks an important moment in the philosophy of ecology. Folks like myself will be responding to it for quite a (...) while. What I find most appealing about the book is just how much there is to argue with. On every page there are interesting ideas presented but which are excitingly controversial. Some will argue with Cooper’s interpretation of the history of ecology. There are parts of the book that empiricists will balk at. You will not be left unstirred. Having said this, Cooper can be longwinded and while you read you should remember patience is a virtue. (shrink)

The variety of nature presents a challenge for ecologists. Individual organisms differ from one another in ways both obvious and subtle, even if they’re members of the same species living in the same location. Different populations, species, communities, ecosystems, biomes, habitats, food webs, etc. also differ from another. What, if anything, can be said in general about ecological systems and how they work? If there are generalities in ecology, do they take the form of exceptionless “laws of nature” (...) analogous to the laws of physics? Or do they take some other form? Should ecologists even try to identify ecological generalities? If so, how? The variety of nature is matched by the variety of ecologists’ answers to those questions. I will suggest that all of their answers are right—sometimes. Here I propose a taxonomy of the many different “roads to generality” in ecology: the various different kinds of “generality” that ecologists seek. I argue that each road to generality is valuable in its own way, but that different roads are useful in different contexts and for different purposes. Different roads to generality thus can be complementary to one another, and it would be a mistake for the field of ecology as a whole to focus exclusively on any one of them. (shrink)

The political, economic and environmental policies of a hegemonic, oligarchic, political-economic international caste are the origin and cause of the ecological and political dystopia that we are living in. An utilitarian, resourcist, anthropocentric perspective guides classical economics and sustainable development models, allowing the enrichment of a tiny part of the world's population, while not impeding but, on the contrary, directly inducing economic losses and environmental destruction for the many. To preserve the integrity of natural systems we must abandon the (...) resourcist anthropocentric ethical fiction that is the current moral foundation underlying our relationship with nature and instead promote the realization of a new developmental landmark for democratic institutions: direct democracy, i.e. democracy truly governed by the people for the people, and ultimately for nature as well. (shrink)

I present an attempt at an explication of the ecological theory of interspecific competition, including its explanatory role in community ecology and evolutionary biology. The account given is based on the idea that law-like statements play an important role in scientific theories of this kind. I suggest that the principle of competitive exclusion is such a law, and that it is evolutionarily invariant. The principle's empirical status is defended and implications for the ongoing debates on the existence of biological (...) laws are discussed. (shrink)

Ecology is indispensable to understanding the biological world and addressing the environmental problems humanity faces. Its philosophy has never been more important. In this book, James Justus introduces readers to the philosophically rich issues ecology poses. Besides its crucial role in biological science generally, climate change, biodiversity loss, and other looming environmental challenges make ecology's role in understanding such threats and identifying solutions to them all the more critical. When ecology is applied and its insights marshalled to address these problems (...) and guide policy formation, interesting philosophical issues emerge. Justus sets them out in detail, and explores the often ethically charged dimensions of applied ecological science, using accessible language and a wealth of scientifically-informed examples. (shrink)

I argue that any approach to affordances that stays close to the letter of the law is not able to account for human agency and meaningful experience….