Environmental Ethics

Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 1985

Being, Feeling, and Environment

Despite the 300 years of philosophy separating them. Spinoza and Heidegger are committed to a unifying vision of the human and the natural. Such a perspective encourages a renewed understanding of the place of feelings in environmental studies. Neither untrustworthy reactions nor neutral readings of environmental stimuli, human feelings are the basic way in which we encounter the world. The primordial character of emotions in both Spinoza and Heidegger follows from their commitment to the unity of reality. An understanding of both thinkers opens up being. feeling. and environnlent as the proper subject matter of ecology. Environmental studies will begin to advance again when it dedicates itself to the potential riches of such a unitive vision.