•  7
    Matthew Gandy, Natura Urbana: Ecological Constellations in Urban Space (review)
    Environmental Ethics 44 (4): 383-385. 2022.
  •  13
    Doing without Nature
    Environmental Philosophy 15 (1): 91-100. 2018.
    Sorry that he is no longer here to read it, I consider in this paper Scott Cameron’s discussion of my views questioning the value of the concept of “nature” for environmental philosophy. Scott had suggested, based on arguments from hermeneutics, that although we never have access to a nature independent of our interpretations of it, still the existence of such a nature is necessarily presupposed by all such interpretations. I claim in response that if we replace the (idealist) notion of interpre…Read more
  •  19
    A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the co…Read more
  •  19
    Doing without Nature
    Environmental Philosophy 15 (1). 2018.
    Sorry that he is no longer here to read it, I consider in this paper Scott Cameron’s discussion of my views questioning the value of the concept of “nature” for environmental philosophy. Scott had suggested, based on arguments from hermeneutics, that although we never have access to a nature independent of our interpretations of it, still the existence of such a nature is necessarily presupposed by all such interpretations. I claim in response that if we replace the (idealist) notion of interpre…Read more
  •  31
    Alienation and Nature in Environmental Philosophy (review)
    Environmental Ethics 39 (2): 235-238. 2017.
  • The status of nature and of the natural sciences in two distinct strains within Marxist philosophy is examined. "Traditional" or orthodox Marxism is represented by Engels: it is argued that his metaphysical thesis of the unity of society and nature on the basis of dialectics is rendered incoherent by his commitment to a scientistic and precritical epistemology of contemplation, and that this incoherence produces significant deficiencies in his social theory. He is forced to view dialectics as fu…Read more
  •  108
    Environmental philosophy after the end of nature
    Environmental Ethics 24 (1): 23-39. 2002.
    I call for “postnaturalism” in environmental philosophy—for an environmental philosophy that no longer employs the concept nature. First, the term is too ambiguous and philosophically dangerous and, second, McKibben and others who argue that nature has already ended are probably right—except that perhaps nature has always already ended. Poststructuralism, environmental history, and recent science studies all point in the same direction: the world we inhabit is always already one transformed by h…Read more
  •  38
    Technology and the Lifeworld (review)
    International Studies in Philosophy 25 (1): 80-82. 1993.
    Review of Don Ihde's TECHNOLOGY AND THE LIFEWORLD and William Leiss's UNDER TECHNOLOGY'S THUMB
  •  43
    Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (review)
    Environmental Ethics 25 (3): 313-315. 2003.
  •  39
    Argues that the tradition of critical theory has had significant problems dealing with the concept of nature and that their solutions require taking seriously the idea of nature as socially constructed.
  •  79
    On Alienation from the Built Environment
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (1): 87-96. 2014.
    If “environment” means “that which environs us,” it isn’t clear why environmentalist thinkers so often identify it with nature and not with the built environment that a quick glance around would reveal is what we’re actually environed by. It’s a familiar claim that we’re “alienated from nature,” but I argue that what we’re really alienated from is the built environment itself. Typically talk of alienation from nature involves the claim that we fail to acknowledge nature’s otherness, but the buil…Read more
  •  92
    Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature
    Environmental Ethics 24 (1): 23-39. 2002.
    I call for “postnaturalism” in environmental philosophy—for an environmental philosophy that no longer employs the concept nature. First, the term is too ambiguous and philosophically dangerous and, second, McKibben and others who argue that nature has already ended are probably right—except that perhaps nature has always already ended. Poststructuralism, environmental history, and recent science studies all point in the same direction: the world we inhabit is always already one transformed by h…Read more
  •  136
    The Nature of Artifacts
    Environmental Ethics 25 (2): 149-168. 2003.
    Philosophers such as Eric Katz and Robert Elliot have argued against ecological restoration on the grounds that restored landscapes are no longer natural. Katz calls them “artifacts,” but the sharp distinction between nature and artifact doesn’t hold up. Why should the products of one particular natural species be seen as somehow escaping nature? Katz’s account identifies an artifact too tightly with the intentions of its creator: artifacts always have more to them than what their creators inten…Read more
  •  26
    Nature as Origin and Difference
    Philosophy Today 42 (Supplement): 169-181. 1998.
  •  14
    Denaturalizing Ecological Politics (review)
    Environmental Ethics 29 (1): 103-106. 2007.
  •  3
    Reification and the nonidentical. On the problem of nature in Lukács and Adorno
    In Lenore Langsdorf, Stephen Watson, Bower H. & E. Marya (eds.), Phenomenology, Interpretation and Community, State University of New York Press. 1996.
  •  20
    The Silence of Nature
    Environmental Values 15 (2). 2006.
    In claiming that 'nature speaks', authors such as Scott Friskics and David Abram implicitly agree that language use is linked to moral considerability, adding only that we need to extend our conception of language to see that non-humans too use it. I argue that the ethical significance of language use derives from its role in dialogue, in which speakers make truth-claims, question and potentially criticise the claims of others, and provide justifications for the claims they raise themselves. Non…Read more
  •  22
    Natural Causes (review)
    Environmental Ethics 22 (3): 315-318. 2000.
  •  3
    Douglas Kellner, Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (review)
    Philosophy in Review 11 108-110. 1991.
  •  33
    Science, practice and politics
    Social Epistemology 5 (4). 1991.
  • Marcuse and the "new science"
    In John Abromeit & W. Mark Cobb (eds.), Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader, Routledge. pp. 240--6. 2003.
  •  4
    Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (review)
    Environmental Ethics 22 (3): 315-318. 2000.