Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics (Groundworks: Ecological Issues in Philosophy and Theology) - Softcover

Treanor, Brian; Drenthen, Martin; Utsler, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0823254267 ISBN 13: 9780823254262

Publisher: Fordham University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Modern environmentalism has come to realize that many of its key concerns―“wilderness” and “nature” among them―are contested territory, viewed differently by different people. Understanding nature requires science and ecology, to be sure, but it also requires a sensitivity to history, culture, and narrative. Thus, understanding nature is a fundamentally hermeneutic task.

About this title

About the Author

Forrest Clingerman is associate professor of philosophy and religion at Ohio Northern University. He is coeditor of Placing Nature on the Borders of Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics (Ashgate, 2011). In addition, he has published a number of articles on environmental thought. His main research focus is on issues of place in environmental philosophy and theology, but he has also written on topics of pedagogy in higher education.Martin Drenthen is associate professor of philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands). He is the coeditor of Old World and New World Pespective in Environmental Philosophy (Springer 2014), Environmental Aesthetics (Fordham Univ Press 2014) and New Visions of Nature: Complexity and Authenticity (Springer 2009). He has written about the significance of Nietzsche's critique of morality for environmental ethics, on ecological restoration, ethics of place, rewilding, wolf resurgence, and environmental hermeneutics.Brian Treanor is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Environmental Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is the author of Aspects of Alterity (Fordham, 2006) and Emplotting Virtue (SUNY Press, 2014), and the coeditor of A Passion for the Possible (Fordham University Press, 2010), and Being-in-Creation (Fordham University Press, 2015). Current projects include the development of an "earthy" hermeneutics, and a monograph on the experience of joy.David Utsler is a PhD candidate at the University of North Texas in the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies. His current areas of research focus on hermeneutics, critical theory, and their application to environmental philosophy. He has published essays in environmental hermeneutics and presented several conference papers on environmental hermeneutics and environmental justice. He is currently working on a manuscript (along with Robert Melchior Figueroa of UNT) on the application of hermeneutics to environmental justice studies and activism.

Review

... Interpreting Nature is engaging throughout and contributes to an important growth in environmental philosophy. (―Environmental Values)

“This is a superb book, written with clarity, precision, and deep feeling for a better understanding of differing approaches to interpreting the wider natural world.” (―Mark Wallace Swarthmore College)

“Interpreting Nature is an excellent collection of essays. This collection is a very welcome addition to the literature and helps to move forward philosophical reflection on the idea of ‘nature’ and charts new and important ways to think about the task of an environmental ethics.” (―Charles Brown Emporia State University)

Edition details

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0823254267
• ISBN 13: 9780823254262
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Clingerman Forrest