Overview
- Provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between pantheism and ecology
- Describes the famous four laws of ecology drafted by Barry Commoner
- Focusses on the cosmological assumptions of pantheism
Part of the book series: Ecology and Ethics (ECET, volume 6)
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Table of contents (28 chapters)
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Current Ecological Concerns and Cosmologies: Exploring Pantheism
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From Pantheism to Ethics and Politics
Keywords
About this book
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between pantheism and ecology, particularly considering different cultural approaches and diverse religious, theological, and philosophical traditions.
Environmental ethics arises from the dangerousness and harmfulness of human beings with respect to nonhuman species and, more generally, with respect to the environment. A common starting point for environmental ethics standpoints is that human beings are responsible for damaging nature. The famous four laws of ecology drafted by Barry Commoner precisely express this guilt on the part of human beings, who very often voluntarily violate the behavioral indications that emerge from nature itself. These aspects concern environmental ethics outlooks.
Eco-theology, then, takes a further step: not only do we damage the ecosystem but also, as many authors suggest, when we humans destroy the natural world, we are wounding God. Such an idea implies a possible coincidence of God with the natural world –or the ecosystem. From this assumption, different questions may emerge: what is the kind of coincidence between God and the natural world? Are God and the ecosystem coextensive? If so, are we re-sacralizing the natural world and grounding intrinsic values in theological postulates and statements?
These questions lead us to reconsider the cosmological assumptions that ground our environmental judgements, from theology to different religious traditions and cultures to philosophical worldviews. In particular, we will focus on the cosmological assumptions of pantheism (considering its differences with panentheism), discussing the symmetrical (or asymmetrical) relationships between God and the finite ways in which God manifests Godself.
In this regard, the book is divided into three main parts: in the first part, the question of pantheism is approached from different traditions and with a special focus on the main thinkers in the history of thought, from Greek Stoicism to the present day. In the second part, some current ecological concerns are considered in relation to pantheistic cosmology: the authors will deepen issues from the discussion of the different “pan-conceptions” to the problem of evil, to Anthropocene. Finally, in the third part, the different chapters will focus on ethical issues in the field of the current environmental crisis with a huge connection with the pantheistic cosmologies.
This book is oriented to a wide public, interested in environmental issues and looking for an approach from different cultures and traditions. Evidently, due to its “academic” nature, this book is also intended to be a great support for researchers interested in eco-theology and, more specifically, in the relationship between pantheism and ecology.
It is not, in this sense, a “classic” book on environmental ethics, but a book that delves into the fundamentals of environmental philosophy, privileging the Ibero-American approach.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editor
Luca Valera studied Philosophy (B.A. and M.A.) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano (Italy). He holds a PhD in Bioethics and Philosophy from the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma (Italy). His thesis was on the topic of human ecology, in the field of environmental ethics. He has been a Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile since 2015, and he was the Director of the Bioethics Centre from 2018 to 2021. He is now an Associate Professor at the Universidad de Valladolid (Spain), Department of Philosophy and an Associate Researcher at the Cape Horn International Center (CHIC, Chile).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Pantheism and Ecology
Book Subtitle: Cosmological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives
Editors: Luca Valera
Series Title: Ecology and Ethics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40040-7
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-40039-1Published: 15 November 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-40042-1Due: 16 December 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-40040-7Published: 14 November 2023
Series ISSN: 2198-9729
Series E-ISSN: 2198-9737
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXI, 366
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Applied Ecology, Environmental Geography, Life Sciences, general