How can the fundamental yet often ambivalent elements of modernity – capitalism, science and technology – be reconsidered from a philosophical perspective? Linking contemporary environmental debates with the philosophy of modernity and deep historical perspectives from anthropology, V. P. J. Arponen presents a wide-ranging discussion of the past, present, and future of the human relationship to nature in a changing world. His guiding thread is the possibility of a value orientation that charts a course between the excesses of reductive economic materialism and constructivist culturalism, recentring on the human capability to live active, meaningful lives.

How can the fundamental yet often ambivalent elements of modernity – capitalism, science and technology – be reconsidered from a philosophical perspective? Linking contemporary environmental debates with the philosophy of modernity and deep historical perspectives from anthropology, V. P. J. Arponen presents a wide-ranging discussion of the past, present, and future of the human relationship to nature in a changing world. His guiding thread is the possibility of a value orientation that charts a course between the excesses of reductive economic materialism and constructivist culturalism, recentring on the human capability to live active, meaningful lives.