A World Not Made for Us: Topics in Critical Environmental Philosophy - Paperback

by Keith R. Peterson (Author)

Proposes a nonanthropocentric reassessment of key themes and approaches in environmental philosophy

In A World Not Made for Us, Keith R. Peterson provides a broad reassessment of the field of environmental philosophy, taking a fresh and critical look at three classical problems of environmentalism: the intrinsic value of nature, the need for an ecological worldview, and a new conception of the place of humankind in nature. He makes the case that a genuinely critical environmental philosophy must adopt an ecological materialist conception of the human, a pluralistic value theory that emphasizes the need for value prioritization, and a stratified categorial ontology that affirms the basic principle of human asymmetrical dependence on more-than-human nature. Integrating environmental ethics with the latest work in political ecology, Peterson argues it is important to understand that the world is not made for us, and that coming to terms with this fact is a condition for survival in future human and more-than-human communities of liberation and solidarity.

Author Biography

Keith R. Peterson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colby College. His books include a translation of F. W. J. Schelling's First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature, also published by SUNY Press.