Thesis (MA (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / This study sets out to document the culture and environmental ethic of the Pokot tribe of Laikipia, Kenya. This is done in order to find the wisdom this culture contains and to seek alternative ways for conservation and development in Africa.

Twentieth century modernity has provoked multiple problems ranging from environmental degradation to human rights violations. Globally, diverse communities of people have organized to promote, not just reactive reforms, but a fundamental alteration of the foundational worldview underlying these issues. Radical activists committed their work to promoting an alternative ethos based on egalitarian, democratic, and ecologically-wise concepts. An array of methodologies emerged from these endeavors. More radical political groups focused on cultural tools to engage people in the construction of an alternative worldview. Radical activists utilized two forms of cultural politics: prefigurative politics, the physical presentation of an envisioned future and direct theory, the constant interaction between theory and practice. Within the artistic community, Ecological Artists centered their practice on cultural activism, creating publicly accessible, site-specific collaborative pieces that illuminate and utilize ecosystem principles to promote an eco-wise worldview. The concept of utilizing cultural production as a method for achieving social transformation has only recently been analyzed within the social movement discipline. Artists rarely utilize social movement vocabulary, or the term "activism" to describe their practices. To date, no correlation between artistic production and social movement strategies has been made. I argue in this thesis that Ecological Artists are cultural activists who simultaneously developed strategies and methods similar to those being worked out by radical social movement activists. While prefigurative politics and direct theory are terms defined within social movement discipline, the cultural activities are similar. Political activists' internal organization and external political work, prefigurative of an envisioned future and the result of constant interaction between theory and practice, correlates to the necessary collaborative organizations of Eco-Art and the physical presence of the work, a manifestation of the constant interaction between ecosystem theory and artistic practice. In this thesis I analyze the work of Ecological Artist Ruth Wallen as a form of cultural activism. I argue that the intention, execution, and content of her work are forms of prefigurative politics and direct theory. Ruth Wallen has been practicing Eco-Art for twenty years. Her work is focused on the heart of Eco-Art, its intention to produce an eco-wise future through artistic practice.

This thesis examines the writing of Wei An苇岸 (1960-1999), a contemporary Chinese nature writer, from an eco-critical perspective grounded in deep ecological view. Urged on by China’s environmental crisis and social problems, and influenced by Western literature and his own life experience, Wei An developed his own deep ecological life philosophy. He respected every creature’s intrinsic value, appreciated the beauty and wonders of nature, advocated the Land Ethic and practiced vegetarianism. He highly treasured the agrarian civilization and objected to modern industrialization, in which he saw very little of any value. Meanwhile, Wei An’s ideas contain questionable aspects like the exaggeration of the defects of modernization and idealization of rural living. Although filled with weak aspects, Wei An’s ecosophy is a faint but significant voice in contemporary Chinese literature and society, and reflects important changes happening in contemporary China.

In the increasingly diverse context of North American schools, cross-cultural understanding is of fundamental importance. Most teachers are mono-cultural – typically white, middle class women. To inform teaching practice, these educators draw primarily from personal cultural backgrounds often to the exclusion or detriment of other cultural ways of knowing brought to the classroom by students. Teacher education programs are challenged to interrupt the norms of their conventional practices in order to help dominant culture teachers become more sensitive and insightful towards issues of cross-cultural pedagogy. In particular, the needs of Canadian Aboriginal students require close attention. Indigenous ways of learning and teaching are rarely included in school curricula. This dissertation argues that not only is an indigenous pedagogy useful for Aboriginal students, it also serves to support learning for all students in a multicultural classroom. This phenomenological narrative study looked at the experience of non-Aboriginal preservice teachers enrolled in a university course taught by instructors from several First Nations of Canada. The course took place on Lkwungen Coast Salish territory and provided direct access to indigenous knowledge as the participants worked with earth fibre textiles. The wisdom keepers created a place for the preservice teachers to participate extensively in a cultural approach to learning that was quite different from their previous educational experiences. While engaging in the indigenous handwork, the preservice teachers carefully observed both their own processes as learners and the ways in which the wisdom keepers in the course acted as teachers. The insight gained through this reflexive work troubled the participants’ deep-seated Eurocentric perspectives. Reflecting on personal shifts in attitudes, values and beliefs about the twinned processes of learning and teaching, the participants reported changes in their teaching practice with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. Significant themes in the data revolve around issues of personal and social intent, reflective and reflexive practice, spirituality, the endogenous processes of the learner, learning in community, and teachers’ faith in the learner. The data suggest that implementing an eco/social/spiritual framework is useful in cross-cultural learning and teaching environments as well as in the context of educational research.

This thesis examines the writing of Wei An苇岸 (1960-1999), a contemporary Chinese nature writer, from an eco-critical perspective grounded in deep ecological view. Urged on by China’s environmental crisis and social problems, and influenced by Western literature and his own life experience, Wei An developed his own deep ecological life philosophy. He respected every creature’s intrinsic value, appreciated the beauty and wonders of nature, advocated the Land Ethic and practiced vegetarianism. He highly treasured the agrarian civilization and objected to modern industrialization, in which he saw very little of any value. Meanwhile, Wei An’s ideas contain questionable aspects like the exaggeration of the defects of modernization and idealization of rural living. Although filled with weak aspects, Wei An’s ecosophy is a faint but significant voice in contemporary Chinese literature and society, and reflects important changes happening in contemporary China.

Text in Afrikaans / During the last few decades the need existed for a new framework to give direction to development and ecological thought in respect of the sustaining of nature in order to place development and ecological thought within the limits of nature. However, development thought and the debate relating to nature are to some extent still treated in theory and practice as two separate entities. One of the current challenges for sustainable development is to reconcile the development and ecological branches of this debate. The thesis firstly explains the origin and characteristics of sustainable development. Secondly, the crisis in nature is discussed, followed by a discussion of the most important ecological views relating to sustainable development. Then issues in development thought that relates to sustainable development is discussed, as well as the changing emphasis in development thought that stimulated the growth of sustainable development. The mainstream development view, as the other main branch of sustainable development thinking, is then discussed. In conclusion, some issues relating to the operationalisation of sustainable development is discussed. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ontwikkelingstudies)

L’eau est porteuse d’aspects différents de consciences, tout en étant un espéranto planétaire. Doit-on parler des artistes de l’eau ? ou bien de l’eau des artistes ? Quel que soit le point de vue que l’on considère, il se dégage une synergie de pensées oeuvrant à une réflexion consensuelle et paradigmatique. Cette recherche propose une nouvelle lecture de l’interaction de l’élément naturel avec la place qu’il occupe dans l’art contemporain ; comment l’eau dans l’art contemporain devient, grâce à sa puissance évocatrice, l’Eau de l’Art, une source inépuisable d’adaptabilité transculturelle qui se fait l’écho d’une nécessaire métamorphose. L’eau est devenu un médium parmi tant d’autres. L'eau, matière naturelle par excellence, se retrouve utilisée indifféremment par un peu tous les courants artistiques actuels notamment dans des vidéos, des performances, des sculptures, en architecture ou dans des expériences à la frontière de l’art et des sciences cognitives. On peut examiner trois aspects de la culture de l'eau : en tant que vecteur à la fois d'une culture enracinée, et d'une éthique de l'Universel commun, la force symbolique de l'eau dans l'histoire de l’art, et l'actualité écologique, scientifique et psychologique. L’eau couvre tous les champs du possible, et rend accessible les moindres recoins de la pensée, aussi bien la part d’ombre que la lumière de la psyché humaine. Elle accompagne et interagit sur les non dits des sociétés, car elle contient leurs savoirs ; elle est la matrice de leur philosophie, leur sociabilité, leur géographie (compréhension de l’espace et des milieux de vie), leur communication, leur histoire, leur langage. L’Eau de l’Art dynamise ainsi une esthétique écosophique en puisant dans la poésie du temps. / Water is a messenger of various aspects of consciousness, while being a global Esperanto. Should we talk about artists of water? Or the water of artists? Whatever point of view one considers, a synergy of thoughts emerges involving a consensual and paradigmatic vision. This research proposes a new reading of the interaction of the natural element with its role in contemporary art; how water in contemporary art becomes, with its evocative power, Water of Art, an inexhaustible source of crosscultural adaptability that echoes a necessary metamorphosis. Water has become a medium among many others. Water, a natural material par excellence, is used interchangeably by almost all the current artistic trends, including video, performance, sculpture, architecture and experiences on the frontier of art and cognitive science. There are three aspects of the culture of water: as a vector of both an ingrained culture and the Universal ethic; the symbolic force of water in art history; and the ecological, scientific and psychological information. Water covers all possible fields, and allows access to every corner of the mind, the dark side as well as the light of the human psyche. It supports and interacts on the unspoken aspects of society because it contains their knowledge; it is the matrix of their philosophy, their sociability, their geography (understanding of space and living environments), communication, history, language. Therefore, Water of Art adds a dynamic to ecosophical aesthetics in drawing from the poetics of time.

In the Anthropocene, a new approach towards nature in poetry is emerging. This change is closely related to ecocritical theory, which is a reevaluation of the human view on, and representation of, nature. It moves away from a more traditional anthropocentric perspective to a more critical one. This can for instance be in the spirit of Arne Naess or Timothy Morton, the two main theorists used in this essay. This essay is an ecocritical close reading of two Swedish contemporary poems on nature: “När jag går i skymningsmörkret” by Ingela Strandberg (from Att snara en fågel, 2018) and “(Strandförskjutningar)” by Gunnar D Hansson (from Tapeshavet, 2017). The focus of the reading is on the representation of wild, untouched nature. The formulated questions in the essay concern how untouched nature is represented in the poems, the human relationship towards it and how the differences and similarities between the two poems relate to and transform romantic representations of nature.  The conclusion is that these two very different poems exemplify the range of contemporary Swedish nature poetry. Strandberg’s poem is leaning towards a romantic or ecosofist representation of nature, whilst Hansson’s is more clear-cut ecocritical in line with Morton’s dark ecology.

Cette thèse entend poser les fondements philosophiques d’une « conversion écologique » en éclairant la dimension ontologique de la crise écologique. Tout en s’inscrivant dans le sillage de l’Encyclique Laudato Si’, où le Pape François lance un vibrant appel à la conversion écologique, l’auteur s’efforce de penser les enjeux proprement philosophiques liés à cette notion. En s’appuyant sur des auteurs tels que Heidegger et Hans Jonas, la première partie de la recherche montre la nécessité d’une véritable « conversion » face au péril métaphysique que représente la technique envisagée ici comme dévoiement de notre « être-au-monde ». Dans un contexte marqué par la résurgence du catastrophisme, l’auteur entend ici souligner la dimension humaniste qui constituait l’horizon de la pensée de ses fondateurs (Günther Anders, Jacques Ellül) tout en confrontant leur vision à celle du « Principe Espérance » porté par Ernst Bloch.La seconde partie de la thèse consiste à poser les fondements éthiques et religieux du concept de conversion. De la metanoia platonicienne aux thérapies de l’âme stoïciennes et épicuriennes, l’auteur explore la place de la connaissance de la nature (physis) dans le « retour à Soi » (epistrophè) de ces sagesses grecques. Peut-on voir en elles la source d’une véritable « conversion écologique » par laquelle il s’agirait autant de convertir notre regard sur la nature que d’être converti par elle ? Si oui, quelles en seraient les modalités ? Dans cette perspective, quels sont les apports de la metanoia chrétienne par rapport à la metanoia platonicienne ? En quoi la « conversion des sens » portée à la fois par la mystique franciscaine et la « prière du cœur » des Pères neptiques dans le monde orthodoxe, constitue-t-elle une étape capitale pour penser la conversion écologique comme conversion du corps et du cœur ? Pour mener à bien cette analyse, l’auteur emprunte la méthode phénoménologique afin de mettre en lumière les liens entre conversion et réduction.La dernière partie, plus spécifiquement consacrée à l’écologie contemporaine, s’appuie sur les modalités de la conversion écologique esquissées avec les penseurs grecs et chrétiens pour penser une transformation profonde de notre « affect du monde ». En s’appuyant sur les notions merleau-pontiennes de « chair du monde » et de « monde brut », l’auteur cherche à penser une « empathie universelle » comme socle d’une nouvelle éthique environnementale. A travers une relecture merleau-pontienne de deux grands courants de l’écologie que sont l’écologie profonde (deep ecology) et la wilderness, l’auteur jette les bases d’une ontologie relationnelle dans deux directions. La première envisage la conversion écologique comme un approfondissement du Soi. Dans le sentiment de la wilderness, c’est autant la nature vierge à l’extérieur de nous que le « monde brut » au plus intime de nous-même, qu’il s’agit de préserver pour ouvrir la voie à une expérience transformante du monde telle que la décrit Henri-David Thoreau dans Walden ou la vie dans les bois. La seconde vise un élargissement du Soi par lequel la réalisation de Soi devient indissociable, par un mouvement d’identification, de celle de notre environnement, jusqu’à faire l’expérience charnelle de ce « Soi écologique » dont nous parle Arne Naess en écho à la « chair du monde » merleau-pontienne et aux théories de la Gestalt dont s’inspirent les deux auteurs. Conscient des limites de la pensée occidentale pour cheminer vers cette non - dualité, clé d’une empathie universelle, l’auteur montre, dans la dernière partie de son analyse, l’influence de la pensée bouddhique sur la deep ecology et explore une spiritualité de la résonance avec le bouddhisme zen japonais incarné dans la figure de Maître Dogen, jusqu’à penser une « échologie de la Joie ». / This thesis is an attempt to provide the philosophical foundations for an ecological conversion while revealing the ontological aspects of the ecological crisis. Following the path described in the Laudato Si’ encyclical letter, where Pope François launches a vibrant call for ecological conversion, the author seeks to adress the philosophical issues in relation to this notion. Refering to philosophers such as Heidegger and Hans Jonas, the first part of this research accounts for the necessity of a true ecological conversion to face the metaphysical « peril » represented by the technical way of mind which leads to an unauthentic « being-in-the-world ». As catastrophism rages, the author underlines the humanistic aspect of its founders’ thought (Gûnther Anders, Jacques Ellûl) while confronting their vision to Ernst Bloch’s « Principle of Hope ».The second chapter of the thesis aims at laying down the ethical and religious foundations of the concept of conversion. From Plato’s metanoia to stoïcian and epicurian soul therapies, the author explores the importance of the knowledge of nature (physis) in the process of epistrophè (return to one’s « Inner Self »). Can these therapies be considered as the roots of a true ecological conversion throughout which we could not only modify the way we look at nature but also be transformed by it? If the answer is yes, what would the terms be? From this perspective, what is the specificity of Christian metanoia compared to Plato’s? To what extent can the doctrine of the “spiritual senses” experienced by both the Franciscan mystic and the neptical Fathers’ « Prayer of the heart » - be considered a crucial step to a living experience of ecological conversion that appeals to our body and heart? To carry out this research, the author relies on the phenomenological methodology, evidencing the links between conversion and reduction.The last part, more specifically dedicated to modern ecology, relies on the definitions of ecological conversion outlined with greek and Christian authors to think through a deep change in our « affect for the world ». Refering to Merleau Ponty’s notions of « flesh of the word » and « wild being », the author endeavours to develop the concept of “universal empathy” as the corner stone of environmental ethics. Through a merleau-pontian interpretation of two major ecological schools of thought, wilderness and deep ecology, the thesis provides tools for elaborating a relational ontology based on two concepts. The first one, called deepening of the Self, refers to the wilderness. The author shows that what has to be preserved is not only territories such as natural reserves but the “wild being” in the innermost part of ourselves so as to enable us to be transformed by nature itself through this experience of wilderness described by famous authors such as Henri-David Thoreau in Walden life in the woods… The second one, called “enlargment of the Self” refers to the experience described by Arne Naess as identification to other living beings as a source of self-realization, echoing the merleau-pontian “flesh of the word”.Aware of the limits of western thought to reach this universal empathy based on non-duality, the author points out, in a conclusive paragraph, the influence of the buddhist way of mind on Arne Naess’s deep ecology, explores a spirituality of the resonance with the world through zen buddhism embodied by Master Dogen, and goes as far as thinking an “echology of Joy”.

The Rights of Nature movement is a quickly growing global phenomenon. However, it is not always obvious what the movement really means. What is its underlying experience? How can its transformative depth be formulated? What is the meaning of this depth? Starting from the ‘Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth’ this essay seeks to elucidate the ontological meaning of these questions through attending to the possible relation of the Rights of Nature movement to Heidegger’s turning toward Parmenides, in the sense of ‘primordial thinker’, or ‘essential thinker’, that is, a thinker who in an essential way thinks the origin as such. This ‘origin’ will be dealt with in relation to the oikos of ecology. In other words ‘essential thinking’ will be brought forward as a thinking that essentially makes possible the mindful awareness of this oikos, this ‘home’, ‘house’, ‘abode’, or ‘place of dwelling’. A chief point of the essay is that an essential experience of this oikos is necessary if the ontological implications of the Rights of Nature movement is to be disclosed.