Michael Bonnett – författare

This book explores alternative ways of understanding our environmental situation by challenging the Western view of nature as purely a resource for humans.

Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education asserts that we need to retrieve a thinking that expresses a different relationship with nature: one that celebrates nature''s otherness and is attuned to its intrinsic integrity, agency, normativity and worth. Through such receptivity to nature''s address we can develop a sense of our own being-in-nature that provides a positive orientation towards the problems we now face. Michael Bonnett argues that this reframing and rethinking of our place in nature has fundamental implications for education as a whole, questioning the idea of human "stewardship" of nature and developing the idea of moral education in a world of alterity and non-rational agents.

Drawing on and revising work published by the author over the last 15 years, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental studies, environmental education, and the philosophy of education.

This book explores alternative ways of understanding our environmental situation by challenging the Western view of nature as purely a resource for humans.

Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education asserts that we need to retrieve a thinking that expresses a different relationship with nature: one that celebrates nature''s otherness and is attuned to its intrinsic integrity, agency, normativity and worth. Through such receptivity to nature''s address we can develop a sense of our own being-in-nature that provides a positive orientation towards the problems we now face. Michael Bonnett argues that this reframing and rethinking of our place in nature has fundamental implications for education as a whole, questioning the idea of human "stewardship" of nature and developing the idea of moral education in a world of alterity and non-rational agents.

Drawing on and revising work published by the author over the last 15 years, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental studies, environmental education, and the philosophy of education.

The volume identifies and debates important elements of what would be involved in an education that is truly adequate for the environmental situation that currently confronts us. The chapters in the book present a wide variety of perspectives and raise questions about much mainstream environmental education, particularly the heavy emphasis given to science in understanding environmental problems and to technology for solving them. Contributions argue that there are other equally - if not more - important aspects to be considered: notably our underlying attitudes towards nature and the quality of our underlying relationship with it. They raise questions about what we mean by nature and how we come to know it most authentically in its many facets. The overweening anthropocentrism and desire for mastery that informs much of current Western engagement with nature is revealed as stymying our ability properly to recognise nature’s intrinsic value and moral standing. Consideration is given to the need for a curriculum in which morality, poetry and myth, art and the humanities, have key roles to play and where our understandings of the qualities of time and space that frame the curriculum are refreshed. The majority of the chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Environmental Education Research.

The volume identifies and debates important elements of what would be involved in an education that is truly adequate for the environmental situation that currently confronts us. The chapters in the book present a wide variety of perspectives and raise questions about much mainstream environmental education, particularly the heavy emphasis given to science in understanding environmental problems and to technology for solving them. Contributions argue that there are other equally - if not more - important aspects to be considered: notably our underlying attitudes towards nature and the quality of our underlying relationship with it. They raise questions about what we mean by nature and how we come to know it most authentically in its many facets. The overweening anthropocentrism and desire for mastery that informs much of current Western engagement with nature is revealed as stymying our ability properly to recognise nature’s intrinsic value and moral standing. Consideration is given to the need for a curriculum in which morality, poetry and myth, art and the humanities, have key roles to play and where our understandings of the qualities of time and space that frame the curriculum are refreshed. The majority of the chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Environmental Education Research.