Environmental Ethics

Volume 37, Issue 1, Spring 2015

The Natural World: Naess, Doμgen, and the Question of Limits

Juxtaposing the ecological insights of Arne Naess and Eihei Dōgen, Deane Curtin maintains that Dōgen’s metaphysical conception of sentience subsumes and corrects Naess’s ecologi­cal Self and its problem of limits. However, an alternative reading of Dōgen, one which deemphasizes the ontological status of the natural world in favor of how we epistemically view it, revitalizes Naess’s question of limits and enables us to reappropriate the problem as our problem. This line of thinking forces us to rethink how we relate to the natural world.