Page 12 - Annales EH 1998-2018

Philosophy of environment

logo of the environmental (or humanist) ecology

Philosophy of environment is a trend of free thought located between philosophy, epistemology, and
anthropology. It gathers various schools such as humanist ecology, philosophy of evolution, and
environmental humanism. It is also meant to be a cultural trend having an influence in the society.

Environment and evolution

The philosophical current indicated under the name philosophy of evolution develops since 1970s by
humanist ecology (called also environmental or evolutive humanism) and by the neo-darwinian
school. Its purpose is the long-term evolution of the complex living being in its universal environment,
analysed through its human cultural expression.

This trend is distinct of the quasi religious evolutionist humanism advocated by Julian Huxley, notably
during the founder congress of the IHEU (international humanist and ethical union) in 1952.

Farther than the basic scientific theory of evolution (notably neo-darwinian, developed by Richard
Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould) evolutive humanism wonders about the necessity for the Man of a
permanent adaptation of both his organism and his thought to develop in his universal environment.
And from there, on the relativized relation to belief and to uncertainty, because human ideas evolve
and are transformed, as for physical qualities, in a universal process of evolution and adaptive
improvement in the environment. But this does not presuppose determinism, genetic or cultural, it
refers to the evolutive interactivity and reactivity, partly random, of the living being with his
surroundings. According to the formula of Marc Carl "Man must necessarily learn to manage the
insufficient appearance and the uncertainty of information to fit and to develop, in his relational
interactions with his environment, as well physically as culturally". In a universal environment still
unknown up to more or less 90 %, this evolutive cogitation tries therefore to be not locked in
premature schemata and answers. It encourages with humility in the proposals, and with intuitive
boldness in the investigations. While following this thread, appears a subjacent humanist thought
which encourages human being to take deliberately his destiny in his hands, in careful correlation with
his environment, knowing that human thought is one of the most impacting manifestations of the
living being, as agent of transformation of the environment, and consequently not only of the Earth
environment. In terms of philosophy of evolution, the organized collective thought of the humanity,
and more in general his evolutive culture, appears as the key of the development of our species in its
universal environment, and the key of a possibly significant interactive modification, in long term, of
this environment. It is principally a prospective step.

This cultural trend seems to have emerged because the concept of progressive permanent adaptation,
which is no longer able to be appreciated by its only scientific aspects, also took a metaphysical
dimension (in a sense of research of the human being essence), which encourages consequently to
analyse the human evolution, clever agent potentially modifier of environment, in philosophical terms.

The whole possible and the risks of this evolution, non-deterministic because of its inscription in a
dynamic complex living system, gives the human existence and destiny a new sense. And the simple
fact to get involved in such a cogitation opens a philosophical way in which curious minds could not
miss advancing sooner or later, a way which rests on a regenerated metaphysics, encouraging to take
back in an evolutive way the original concept of Aristoteles on the physis and its substance to search
with modern conceptual tools the essence and the sense of our life.