Phenomenology and ecology

dependence and co-dependency

Erazim Kohák

pp. 209-219

in: Robert S. Cohen, Alfred Tauber (eds), Philosophies of nature: the human dimension, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

In spite of its frivolous title, this paper has a serious purpose. I would like to suggest that, in their original intent, phenomenology and ecology are mutually supportive, but that whenever they yield to a nostalgic longing to return to a purity of Beyng or Nature, their interrelation becomes destructive. An ecological philosophy appears to me viable only within reality perceived phenomenologically, as life's world, while the moral implications of such a conception inevitably lead to ecological conclusions. However, in their romantic mode, phenomenology and ecology can become locked in a pathological co-dependency which ultimately leads to a metacrisis.