We are only beginning to understand the significance of the issues which our environmental situation raises, and their implications for philosophy of education have yet to receive the depth of consideration they merit. This paper argues that certain strands of environmental concern invite us to reconsider the metaphysical basis of education. Having identified some senses in which education is properly construed as metaphysical, it explores questions posed for the conceptions of knowledge, truth, personhood and morality in which education is rooted, (...) and for the versions of reality and the relationship to nature in which it invites pupils to participate. (shrink)

We are only beginning to understand the significance of the issues which our environmental situation raises, and their implications for philosophy of education have yet to receive the depth of consideration they merit. This paper argues that certain strands of environmental concern invite us to reconsider the metaphysical basis of education. Having identified some senses in which education is properly construed as metaphysical, it explores questions posed for the conceptions of knowledge, truth, personhood and morality in which education is rooted, (...) and for the versions of reality and the relationship to nature in which it invites pupils to participate. (shrink)

Some strands of environmental concern invite a radical re-evaluation of many taken for granted assumptions of late modern ways of life—particularly those that structure how we relate to the natural world. This article explores some of the implications of such a re-evaluation for our understanding of moral education by examining the significance of ideas of our place in nature that focus not on our location in some grand abstract system, but on our felt sense of place in the course of (...) our daily existence. It will be argued that exploration of the anticipatory and ecstatic nature of such concrete emplacement reveals an underlying normative character to our encounters with nature, now experienced as an autonomous and essentially mysterious non-human other that both sustains and is sustained by places—places in which find ourselves and live out our lives. It is argued that this view foregrounds a notion of transcendence that leads to both a questioning of the anthropocentrism (i.e. its metaphysical basis) that informs many Western moral views and an acknowledgement of intrinsic value in nature, such that some current mainstream understandings of the character of moral sensibility and of moral education can no longer be regarded as adequate. (shrink)

This book explores alternative ways of understanding our environmental situation by challenging the Western view of nature as purely a resource for humans. Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education asserts that we need to retrieve a thinking that expresses a different relationship with nature: one that celebrates nature's otherness and is attuned to its intrinsic integrity, agency, normativity and worth. Through such receptivity to nature's address we can develop a sense of our own being-in-nature that provides a positive (...) orientation towards the problems we now face. Michael Bonnett argues that this reframing and rethinking of our place in nature has fundamental implications for education as a whole, questioning the idea of human "stewardship" of nature and developing the idea of moral education in a world of alterity and non-rational agents. Drawing on and revising work published by the author over the last 15 years, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental studies, environmental education, and the philosophy of education. (shrink)

Arguing for a renewed view of objects and nature, Ethical Responses to Nature's Call considers how it is possible to understand our ethical duties - in the form of ethical intuitionalism- to nature and the planet by listening to and releasing ourselves over to the call or address of nature. Blending several strands of philosophical thought, such as Graham Harman's Object Oriented Ontology, W. D. Ross's Prima Facie Ethics, Alphonso Lingis's phenomenological ethics traceable to The Imperative, and Michael Bonnett's eco-philosophy, (...) this book offers a unique rejoinder to the problems and issues that continue to haunt humans' relationship to nature. The origins of such problems and issues largely remain obscured from view due to the oppressive influence of the "cultural framework" which gives form and structure to the ways we understand, discourse, and comport ourselves to the natural world. Through understanding this "cultural framework" we also come to know the responses we continue to offer in response to nature's call and address, and are then in a position to analyze and assess those replies in terms of their potential ethical weight. Such a phenomenon is made possible through the descriptive-and-interpretivemethod of eco-phenomenology. This renewed vision of the human-and-nature provides direction for our interaction with and behaviour towards nature in such a way that the ethical insight offers a diagnosis and provides a potentially compelling prescriptive for environmental ills. ral world. Through understanding this "cultural framework" we also come to know the responses we continue to offer in response to nature's call and address, and are then in a position to analyze and assess those replies in terms of their potential ethical weight. Such a phenomenon is made possible through the descriptive-and-interpretivemethod of eco-phenomenology. This renewed vision of the human-and-nature provides direction for our interaction with and behaviour towards nature in such a way that the ethical insight offers a diagnosis and provides a potentially compelling prescriptive for environmental ills. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 54, Issue 5, Page 1278-1305, October 2020.