Emerson And Environmental Ethics Hardcover

New

Susan L. Dunston

At the core of Emerson's philosophy is his view as a naturalist that we are "made of the same atoms as the world is." In counterpoint to this identity, he noted the fluid evolution and diversity of combinations and configurations of those atoms. Thus, he argued, our "relation and connection" to the world are not occasional or recreational, but "everywhere and always," and also reciprocal, ongoing, and creative. He declared he would be a naturalist, which for him meant being a knowledgeable "lover of nature." Emerson's famous insistence on an "original relation to the universe" centered on morally creative engagement with the environment. It took the form of a nature literacy that has become central to contemporary environmental ethics. The essential argument of this book is that Emerson's integrated philosophy of nature, ethics, and creativity is a powerful prototype for a diverse range of contemporary environmental ethics. After describing Emerson's own environmental literacy and ethical, aesthetic, and creative practices of relating to the natural world, Dunston delineates a web of environmental ethics that connects Emerson to contemporary eco-feminism, living systems theory, Native American science, Asian philosophy, and environmental activism.

9781498552967

English

Lexington Books

15 Sep 2018

152

Susan L. Dunston is professor emerita at New Mexico Tech.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is often considered essentially a poet, in verse and prose. But Susan Dunston takes him seriously as a philosopher whose environmental ethics influenced such diverse figures as Henry Thoreau, William James, D. T. Suzuki, Aldo Leopold, Loren Eiseley, Annie Dillard, Alan Watts, and E. O. Wilson, and whose ecological concerns are paralleled in contemporary eco-feminism, Indigenous culture, and other forms. Implicit in Emerson's stirring charge to "Build . . . your own world," Dunston shows, is not egoism but rather an ethic of accountability, "that we not harm." Her widely informed, close analyses of Emerson's writings open exciting new contexts for understanding his Transcendentalist manifesto Nature (1836) as well as several of his essential essays. At the same time, her book is a quietly impassioned call for an empathetic sense of "interconnected diversity" and genuine "nature literacy," which are desperately needed for our planet's ecological health. -- Wesley Mott, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Susan L. Dunston's Emerson and Environmental Ethics reacquaints readers with Emerson as a brilliant mind in his time and ours. Every chapter is full of surprising insights into his work and its relevance to the most compelling concerns of today. -- Catherine Rainwater, St. Edward's University In this lucid, accessible, and beautifully written account of Emerson's philosophy, Susan Dunston charts a compelling path from Emerson's unifying vision to much later environmental philosophies. Her magnificent close readings reveal a writer equally committed to a philosophical thinking that is "sensuous, experiential, and reformist" and a practice that is "attentive, relational, empathetic, and aesthetically sensitive." Readers of this book will discover a progressive, practical, and influential Emerson who remains the deeply reflective writer we have long known. -- Kristin Boudreau, Worcester Polytechnic Institute