Woodard, Ben --- "The nested eye: naturalism, perspectivalism, and environmental law" [2017] ELECD 1458; in Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Andreas; Brooks, Victoria (eds), "Research Methods in Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 416

Book Title: Research Methods in Environmental Law

Editor(s): Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Andreas; Brooks, Victoria

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784712563

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: The nested eye: naturalism, perspectivalism, and environmental law

Author(s): Woodard, Ben

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

The following chapter argues that the term nature cannot easily be replaced by ecology and that numerous forms of contemporary philosophy attempt to abandon epistemology for a more ontological or materially focused approach. This shift away from epistemology leads to a knot of at least three interrelated problems: an overemphasis on a life-bound ethics that ignores biology; a tendency to gift subjectivity or thought upon other entities without adequate understanding; and lastly, an appeal to aesthetics as first philosophy without accounting for perspective. I address each of these problems and propose alternatives that collectively re-establish the need for a new epistemology to conduct ecological thinking.