The World Around Us: Philosophy and the Environment
$ 150.00
Course fee includes access to:
- PDFs of course readings
- Weekly reading guides
- Ten video lectures (approx. 1 hour each)
- Links to other online resources
Description
Each year is a new year of broken records. New record temperatures. New records in the destructiveness of hurricanes and wildfires. New records in atmospheric carbon and deforestation. It’s impossible not to think about the environment these days. Let’s learn to think about it with the breadth and depth that the issue demands.
This course draws on a diverse mix of readings that investigate the ethical, political, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions of environmental philosophy. We’ll do more than look for solutions. We’ll learn new ways of thinking about the problems—and in the process, learn new ways of thinking about the world around us and our place in it.
Course content:
Session 1: William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness”
Session 2: Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic”
Session 3: Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”
Session 4: Val Plumwood, “Nature, Self, and Gender”
Session 5: Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Honorable Harvest”
Session 6: Christopher D. Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing?”
Session 7: Ramachandra Guha, “The Environmentalism of the Poor”
Session 8: Murray Bookchin, “The Concept of Social Ecology”
Session 9: Stephen M. Gardiner, “A Perfect Moral Storm”
Session 10: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Religion and the Resacralization of Nature”
