EDITORIAL ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AS WORLD PHILOSOPHY

• Authors: Brown Charles
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This issue of Dialogue and Universalism is devoted to the promotion and realization of intercultural and transcultural forms of philosophical reflection aimed at improving the fate of humanity and our shared co-inhabitants of Planet Earth. This project is simultaneously philosophical and practical. Ecological disruption, now occurring at ever-increasing spatial and temporal scales, is a threat to all existing life-forms and ecosystems, as well as to the integrity and stability of present and future human civilization(s). As I write this, in the summer of 2023, our globally shared climate crisis continues to worsen. With each passing year, the tragic consequences of the now many varieties of eco-disruption become increasingly clear. Runaway global warming becomes more apparent with ever increasing record-breaking temperatures. Extinction rates rise as wildlife habitat gives way to economic development. The frequency and intensity of wildfires in Hawaii, Canada, Africa, Siberia, and beyond become progressively more shocking. Sea levels rise as land-based ice sheets and glaciers continue to melt. These urgent issues present our times with the unprecedented challenge of learning how best to live in a new historical, biological, and geological era whose defining feature is a humanly shaped and ecologically degraded world. A growing number of geologists, geophysicists, and other Earth scientists have named this new geological epoch the “Anthropocene,” a term meaning the age of man. They argue that humans are now the ecologically dominant force on Earth as homo sapiens have become an elemental force of nature now controlling biodiversity and ecosystem processes as much as climate and geography. These geologists, along with climate scientists, environmentalists, and everyday citizens now recognize this new reality to be a profoundly important turning point for contemporary culture. A coherent and optimal response to the new ecological reality of systemic global ecological disorders calls for international and intercultural dialogue structured around diverse understanding(s) of what is at stake, of what is in danger of being lost, and of what may still be conserved, preserved, maintained, and protected. Although we live in an historical era with instant global communication, increasing political, economic, and cultural cooperation, the possibilities of constructive international and intercultural dialogue on the great issues of our time are seriously undermined by rising levels of xenophobic nationalism and the resulting retreat into ethnic separatism. The paradoxical reality of this new historical and geological era presents a special challenge to the discipline of philosophy. Philosophy began, in its various cultural manifestations, as an attempt to make better sense of ourselves and the world around us. Questions concerning the nature of the Good Life and how best to pursue it have never been far from the core aims of philosophical thinking in each of its cultural expressions. These questions have too often been lost in recent decades as the discipline of philosophy has become increasingly specialized, concentrating on ever more narrowly defined problems. The various forms of environmental philosophy that have emerged in recognition of local and global ecological problems are powerful reminders of the enduring importance of questions concerning the Good Life and the importance of holistic approaches to those questions. The papers in this issue of Dialogue and Universalism attempt to sketch a role for philosophy in our time and place; a role that begins with the recognition of a world that is progressively inhospitable to living beings, species, and ecosystems. These essays move towards forms of environmental philosophy(s) that self-consciously seek to construct intercultural or transcultural ways of making sense of our time and place and how best to envision what may still be possible and desirable. These essays are moving towards the construction of a globally inclusive discourse/dialogue needed to address the serious and interculturally shared issues of our time and place. Any realization of the possibility for constructing such globally inclusive and potentially overlapping ecological discourses/dialogues will largely be the result of a mutually cooperative process involving many peoples and cultures. Such a project can only emerge from grassroots efforts motivated by the internal dynamics within diverse communities of thought. These essays point beyond themselves and toward the project of creating a globally diverse and transcultural philosophical community through dialogue between and among the world’s cultural traditions. Such a project features a directionality, a movement towards something whose ultimate telos is not yet fixed nor fully defined and begins with an effort to explore similarities and differences between different cultural traditions with the goal of cultivating mutual understanding and respect. The cultivation of mutual understanding and respect further invites us to “step outside” one’s own culture and thereby see the world from new perspectives and to “build bridges between different cultures” thereby allowing the integration of culturally produced or culturally bound insights into a larger “transcultural framework.” This, in turn, opens the possibility of a dialogue in which our own views become subject to challenge and revision in light of what we may learn from other cultures and the hope that we may learn to rub seemingly discordant ideas together and spark new insights. In different ways, these essays acknowledge that the construction of such globally shared discourses calls for a recognition of the kinship between different perspectives, identities, and cultures that too often separate us. A common theme running through these papers, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, is the need for a more inclusive form of thinking that is open to a diversity of perspectives. These papers advocate a way of thinking that resists conceiving the world in terms of fixed and separate elements, atoms, particles, cultures, or monadic selves. Instead, they argue for what some see as an ecologically inspired way of thinking that reflects the ideas of ontological flux, mutual reciprocity, symbiosis, integration of differences, and transspecies kinship. These papers advocate ways of thinking that recognize the identities of people and things in terms of mutual and interdependent relations rather than standalone fixed essences. These essays extend the boundaries of philosophical reflection beyond its usual parameters by integrating data and insights from the natural and social sciences, literary criticism, and the world’s religious traditions. This approach moves toward considering the endless varieties of the different ways of making sense of things as essential moments within a larger and open-ended process. The Editorial team of Dialogue and University is deeply grateful to the authors for their efforts.

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2023
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 5-7

Contributors

author

Brown Charles

• Emporia State University, USA