Environmental crisis and ecophenomenological praxis
It is a relatively uncontroversial observation that huge advances in our scientific understanding of the âissuesâ constitutive of our environmental crisis havenât brought about the requisite attitudinal and behavioural changes to disrupt them at root. In this thesis, I pursue the suspicion that this problem may be traced back, in part, to the violence already implicit in the limited, objectivistic, and often dualistic models that natural scientists offer of those âissuesâ and the more-than-human world more broadly. Since tackling the behavioural and attitudinal violence of our crisis situation also requires tackling the conceptual violence implicit in the basic terms of debate, I argue, then a specifically Merleau-Pontian ecophenomenology is uniquely well-equipped to attend to the task in hand. I begin by exploring the benefits of using phenomenological tools to disrupt the scientific naturalist stronghold on ontological and epistemological matters where the more-than-human world is concerned. Scientific naturalismâs problems appear to derive from its inability to fully acknowledge the intentional salience of the scientistâs situated embodiment to the phenomena she encounters and only subsequently
Booth, R.
Environmental crisis and ecophenomenological praxis. It is a relatively uncontroversial observation that huge advances in our scientific understanding of the âissuesâ constitutive of our environmental crisis havenât brought about the requisite attitudinal and behavioural changes to disrupt them at root. In this thesis, I pursue the suspicion that this problem may be traced back, in part, to the violence already implicit in the limited, objectivistic, and often dualistic models that natural scientists offer of those âissuesâ and the more-than-human world more broadly. Since tackling the behavioural and attitudinal violence of our crisis situation also requires tackling the conceptual violence implicit in the basic terms of debate, I argue, then a specifically Merleau-Pontian ecophenomenology is uniquely well-equipped to attend to the task in hand. I begin by exploring the benefits of using phenomenological tools to disrupt the scientific naturalist stronghold on ontological and epistemological matters where the more-than-human world is concerned. Scientific naturalismâs problems appear to derive from its inability to fully acknowledge the intentional salience of the scientistâs situated embodiment to the phenomena she encounters and only subsequently
environmental crisis praxis relatively uncontroversial observation huge advance scientific issue constitutive environmental crisis bring attitudinal behavioural change disrupt root pursue suspicion problem may trace_back part violence already implicit limited often dualistic model natural scientist offer issue more human world broadly since tackle behavioural attitudinal violence crisis situation also require tackle conceptual violence implicit basic term debate argue specifically uniquely well equipped attend task hand begin explore benefit use phenomenological tool disrupt scientific naturalist stronghold ontological_epistemological matter more human world concern scientific naturalism problem appear derive inability fully acknowledge intentional salience scientist situate embodiment phenomenon encounter subsequently