Appreciating nature on its own terms

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 135-149

  Saito, Yuriko ^a  

^a RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0004580816     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199820228     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Yi-Fu Tuan, "Yi-Fu Tuan's Good Life," On Wisconsin 9, no. 1 (April 1987).
2. Kendall L. Walton, "Categories of Art," Philosophical Review 78 (1970): 334-67; reprinted in Philosophy Looks at the Arts, ed. Joseph Margolis, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), pp. 71-72.
3. Kendall L. Walton, "Categories of Art," Philosophical Review 78 (1970): 334-67; reprinted in Philosophy Looks at the Arts, ed. Joseph Margolis, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), pp. 71-72.
4. Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard: Author of the Quixote," in Labyrinths, ed. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (New York: New Directions Books, 1964), p. 44.
5. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Capricon Books, 1958), p. 325.
6. Ibid., p. 333.
7. Clive Bell, Art (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1913), p. 53.
8. D. W. Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene" in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscape, ed. D. W. Meinig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 46.
9. Allen Carlson, "Formal Qualities in the Natural Environment," Journal of Aesthetic Education 13 (July 1979): 100. See also "On the Possibility of Quantifying Scenic Beauty," Landscape Planning 4 (1977): 131-72.
10. Allen Carlson, "Formal Qualities in the Natural Environment," Journal of Aesthetic Education 13 (July 1979): 100. See also "On the Possibility of Quantifying Scenic Beauty," Landscape Planning 4 (1977): 131-72.
11. Arnold Berleant has been the foremost speaker on this problem of predominantly pictorial appreciation of nature. See Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). There are other contemporary works which stress the importance of all the senses involved in our aesthetic appreciation of nature: J. Douglas Porteous, Landscapes of the Mind: World of Sense and Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture (Washington D. C.: Island Press, 1993); David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than Human World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). Nature is different from art in its multisensory appeal. With respect to art, there exists a conventional agreement which limits what sensory qualities are aesthetically relevant. For example, the smell and taste of paint, no matter how interesting, are not integral to the aesthetic value of a painting as a painting.
12. Arnold Berleant has been the foremost speaker on this problem of predominantly pictorial appreciation of nature. See Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). There are other contemporary works which stress the importance of all the senses involved in our aesthetic appreciation of nature: J. Douglas Porteous, Landscapes of the Mind: World of Sense and Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture (Washington D. C.: Island Press, 1993); David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than Human World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). Nature is different from art in its multisensory appeal. With respect to art, there exists a conventional agreement which limits what sensory qualities are aesthetically relevant. For example, the smell and taste of paint, no matter how interesting, are not integral to the aesthetic value of a painting as a painting.
13. Arnold Berleant has been the foremost speaker on this problem of predominantly pictorial appreciation of nature. See Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). There are other contemporary works which stress the importance of all the senses involved in our aesthetic appreciation of nature: J. Douglas Porteous, Landscapes of the Mind: World of Sense and Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture (Washington D. C.: Island Press, 1993); David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than Human World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). Nature is different from art in its multisensory appeal. With respect to art, there exists a conventional agreement which limits what sensory qualities are aesthetically relevant. For example, the smell and taste of paint, no matter how interesting, are not integral to the aesthetic value of a painting as a painting.
14. Arnold Berleant has been the foremost speaker on this problem of predominantly pictorial appreciation of nature. See Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). There are other contemporary works which stress the importance of all the senses involved in our aesthetic appreciation of nature: J. Douglas Porteous, Landscapes of the Mind: World of Sense and Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture (Washington D. C.: Island Press, 1993); David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than Human World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). Nature is different from art in its multisensory appeal. With respect to art, there exists a conventional agreement which limits what sensory qualities are aesthetically relevant. For example, the smell and taste of paint, no matter how interesting, are not integral to the aesthetic value of a painting as a painting.
15. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). The reference to showpieces comes from p. 193, proper mountains, p. 179, the Kansas plains, p. 180, and prairies of Iowa and Wisconsin, p. 193. A good discussion of Leopold's land aesthetics can be found in J. Baird Callicott's "The Land Aesthetic," Orion Nature Quarterly 3 (Summer 1984): 16-22. Leopold's emphasis on the aesthetic value of the scenically challenged parts of nature support the notion of what Allen Carlson calls "positive aesthetics": the view that every part of nature is aesthetically positive. See his "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 5-34. For a similar view, see Holmes Rolston, III's Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Value in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 237-43. I have also explored the notion of unscenic nature in "The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 101-11.
16. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). The reference to showpieces comes from p. 193, proper mountains, p. 179, the Kansas plains, p. 180, and prairies of Iowa and Wisconsin, p. 193. A good discussion of Leopold's land aesthetics can be found in J. Baird Callicott's "The Land Aesthetic," Orion Nature Quarterly 3 (Summer 1984): 16-22. Leopold's emphasis on the aesthetic value of the scenically challenged parts of nature support the notion of what Allen Carlson calls "positive aesthetics": the view that every part of nature is aesthetically positive. See his "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 5-34. For a similar view, see Holmes Rolston, III's Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Value in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 237-43. I have also explored the notion of unscenic nature in "The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 101-11.
17. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). The reference to showpieces comes from p. 193, proper mountains, p. 179, the Kansas plains, p. 180, and prairies of Iowa and Wisconsin, p. 193. A good discussion of Leopold's land aesthetics can be found in J. Baird Callicott's "The Land Aesthetic," Orion Nature Quarterly 3 (Summer 1984): 16-22. Leopold's emphasis on the aesthetic value of the scenically challenged parts of nature support the notion of what Allen Carlson calls "positive aesthetics": the view that every part of nature is aesthetically positive. See his "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 5-34. For a similar view, see Holmes Rolston, III's Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Value in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 237-43. I have also explored the notion of unscenic nature in "The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 101-11.
18. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). The reference to showpieces comes from p. 193, proper mountains, p. 179, the Kansas plains, p. 180, and prairies of Iowa and Wisconsin, p. 193. A good discussion of Leopold's land aesthetics can be found in J. Baird Callicott's "The Land Aesthetic," Orion Nature Quarterly 3 (Summer 1984): 16-22. Leopold's emphasis on the aesthetic value of the scenically challenged parts of nature support the notion of what Allen Carlson calls "positive aesthetics": the view that every part of nature is aesthetically positive. See his "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 5-34. For a similar view, see Holmes Rolston, III's Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Value in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 237-43. I have also explored the notion of unscenic nature in "The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 101-11.
19. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). The reference to showpieces comes from p. 193, proper mountains, p. 179, the Kansas plains, p. 180, and prairies of Iowa and Wisconsin, p. 193. A good discussion of Leopold's land aesthetics can be found in J. Baird Callicott's "The Land Aesthetic," Orion Nature Quarterly 3 (Summer 1984): 16-22. Leopold's emphasis on the aesthetic value of the scenically challenged parts of nature support the notion of what Allen Carlson calls "positive aesthetics": the view that every part of nature is aesthetically positive. See his "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 5-34. For a similar view, see Holmes Rolston, III's Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Value in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 237-43. I have also explored the notion of unscenic nature in "The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 101-11.
20. John Muir, The Mountains of California, originally published in 1894, included in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry, ed. John Conron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 255.
21. John Muir, The Mountains of California, originally published in 1894, included in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry, ed. John Conron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 255.
22. For a recent concern regarding the area surrounding Yellowstone National Park, see "Mother Lode vs. Mother Nature" by John Skow in Time, 22 November 1993, pp. 58-59. For Glacier National Park, see "Park Boundary No Barrier to Environmental Warfare," Providence Sunday Journal, 12 November 1989.
23. For a recent concern regarding the area surrounding Yellowstone National Park, see "Mother Lode vs. Mother Nature" by John Skow in Time, 22 November 1993, pp. 58-59. For Glacier National Park, see "Park Boundary No Barrier to Environmental Warfare," Providence Sunday Journal, 12 November 1989.
24. Also see "The Fall of the Wild," in Newsweek, 28 July 1986, pp. 52-54, for the map of the ecologically problematic border of the Yellowstone.
25. Cited by Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, 2d ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), p. 131.
26. Sarah Hale, "The Romance of Travelling," in Traits of American Life (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1835), p. 190. Also see Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery," which originally appeared in American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836), in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry, ed. John Conron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974);
27. Sarah Hale, "The Romance of Travelling," in Traits of American Life (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1835), p. 190. Also see Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery," which originally appeared in American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836), in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry, ed. John Conron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974);
28. Sarah Hale, "The Romance of Travelling," in Traits of American Life (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1835), p. 190. Also see Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery," which originally appeared in American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836), in The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry, ed. John Conron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974);
29. Horatio Parsons, The Book of Niagara Falls, which originally appeared in 1836, included in American Landscape; and N. P. Willis, American Scenery; or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (1840; reprint ed., Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society, 1971). Hans Huth's seminal work, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), gives a thorough historical account of this nineteenth-century American attitude toward their landscape.
30. Horatio Parsons, The Book of Niagara Falls, which originally appeared in 1836, included in American Landscape; and N. P. Willis, American Scenery; or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (1840; reprint ed., Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society, 1971). Hans Huth's seminal work, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), gives a thorough historical account of this nineteenth-century American attitude toward their landscape.
31. Horatio Parsons, The Book of Niagara Falls, which originally appeared in 1836, included in American Landscape; and N. P. Willis, American Scenery; or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (1840; reprint ed., Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society, 1971). Hans Huth's seminal work, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), gives a thorough historical account of this nineteenth-century American attitude toward their landscape.
32. Cole, "Essay on Scenery," p. 571.
33. These are representative of the collection of Japanese folklore and historical legends compiled in the fifteen volumes of Nihon Densetsu Taikei [Complete Collection of Japanese Folklore], ed. Hiroyuki Araki et al. (Tokyo: Mizuumi Shobo, 1983).
34. Sec. 41 of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. Also see secs. 36, 37, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49.
35. This sentiment is extensively documented by Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), particularly in the section entitled "Cultivation or Wilderness?"
36. John Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature: Ecological Problems and Western Traditions (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), p. 38. I thank the editor, Eugene Hargrove, for the reference to Passmore's work.
37. Allen Carlson, "Appreciation and the Natural Environment," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37 (Spring 1979): 273.
38. Allen Carlson, "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (Fall 1981): 25. Carlson hints, but does not develop, the moral importance for appreciating nature on its own terms "if our appreciation is to be at a deeper level," by noting that doing so "is important not only for aesthetic but also for moral and ecological reasons. " The first passage comes from "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," p. 25 (emphasis added), and the second from "Appreciation and the Natural Environment," p. 274.
39. Allen Carlson, "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (Fall 1981): 25. Carlson hints, but does not develop, the moral importance for appreciating nature on its own terms "if our appreciation is to be at a deeper level," by noting that doing so "is important not only for aesthetic but also for moral and ecological reasons. " The first passage comes from "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," p. 25 (emphasis added), and the second from "Appreciation and the Natural Environment," p. 274.
40. Allen Carlson, "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (Fall 1981): 25. Carlson hints, but does not develop, the moral importance for appreciating nature on its own terms "if our appreciation is to be at a deeper level," by noting that doing so "is important not only for aesthetic but also for moral and ecological reasons. " The first passage comes from "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment and Objectivity," p. 25 (emphasis added), and the second from "Appreciation and the Natural Environment," p. 274.
41. Comments by an anonymous referee for this journal.
42. Stan Godlovitch, "Ice Breakers: Environmentalism and Natural Aesthetics," Journal of Applied Philosophy 11 (1994): 23 (emphasis added).
43. Godlovitch, "Ice Breakers," p. 23 and p. 26.
44. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, in Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings (New York: Viking Press, 1982), p. 285.
45. Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Criticism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1960), p. 35.
46. Hugo Munsterberg, "Connection in Science and Isolation in Art," from The Principles of Art Education (1905), in A Modern Book of Esthetics, ed. Melvin Rader, 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 438.
47. Hugo Munsterberg, "Connection in Science and Isolation in Art," from The Principles of Art Education (1905), in A Modern Book of Esthetics, ed. Melvin Rader, 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 438.
48. Allen Carlson, "Appreciating Art and Appreciating Nature," in Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts, ed. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 220.
49. Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (1989; reprint ed., Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1996), p. 40.
50. Ibid.
51. Muir, The Mountains of California, pp. 263-64 (emphasis added).
52. All the passages come from Leopold's Sand County Almanac. The reference to the promotion of perception comes from p. 290, the necessity of the otherwise invisible background, p. 291, marsh-land chorus, p. 171, the song of a river, the speech of hills and a vast pulsing harmony, p. 158, cranes, p. 102, weeds, p. 292, and "Thinking Like a Mountain" is the title of one essay included in "The Quality of Landscape," pp. 137-41.
53. All the passages come from Leopold's Sand County Almanac. The reference to the promotion of perception comes from p. 290, the necessity of the otherwise invisible background, p. 291, marsh-land chorus, p. 171, the song of a river, the speech of hills and a vast pulsing harmony, p. 158, cranes, p. 102, weeds, p. 292, and "Thinking Like a Mountain" is the title of one essay included in "The Quality of Landscape," pp. 137-41.
54. Cited by Runte, National Parks, p. 80.
55. Roderick Nash also devotes a chapter to the discussion of Hetch-Hetchy Valley in his Wilderness and the American Mind, 3d ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Various problems, including aesthetic issues, associated with the recent proposal to "restore" the Hetch-Hetchy Valley by draining the water are explored by Nancy Lee Wilkinson in "No Holier Temple: Responses to Hodel's Hetch Hetchy Proposal," Landscape 31 (1991), pp. 1-9. Her article is illustrated by the photographs of the site before and after the dam completion, including the touched-up photo used by the supporters of the dam.
56. Roderick Nash also devotes a chapter to the discussion of Hetch-Hetchy Valley in his Wilderness and the American Mind, 3d ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Various problems, including aesthetic issues, associated with the recent proposal to "restore" the Hetch-Hetchy Valley by draining the water are explored by Nancy Lee Wilkinson in "No Holier Temple: Responses to Hodel's Hetch Hetchy Proposal," Landscape 31 (1991), pp. 1-9. Her article is illustrated by the photographs of the site before and after the dam completion, including the touched-up photo used by the supporters of the dam.
57. In one of his most recent writings, Carlson seems to hint that the story we tell on behalf of nature may also include folklore and myth. He claims that in appreciating nature "part of our appreciative response is directed towards whatever is in our story," whether it be "an all-powerful god, a folklore of demons and fairies, or a world of natural forces." See Carlson, "Appreciating Art and Appreciating Nature," p. 222.
58. Rolston, Environmental Ethics, pp. 344-45.
59. It is interesting to note in this regard that the fifteen volume collection of Japanese folklore and legend, Nihon Denstsu Taikei, organizes the stories into two categories: "Bunka Joji Densetsu" (tales of culture and epic) and "Shizen Setsumei Densetsu" (tales of explanation of nature).
60. Jim Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 120 and 133. For the origin of the term bioregionalism, see Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 440. Gary Snyder, in "The Place, the Region, and the Commons," claims that "the myths of world-creation tell you how that mountain was created and how that peninsula came to be there," and that "bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to 'love nature' or to want to 'be in harmony with Gaia.' Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience." In Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild (New York: North Point Press, 1990), pp. 26 and 39.
61. Jim Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 120 and 133. For the origin of the term bioregionalism, see Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 440. Gary Snyder, in "The Place, the Region, and the Commons," claims that "the myths of world-creation tell you how that mountain was created and how that peninsula came to be there," and that "bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to 'love nature' or to want to 'be in harmony with Gaia.' Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience." In Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild (New York: North Point Press, 1990), pp. 26 and 39.
62. Jim Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 120 and 133. For the origin of the term bioregionalism, see Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 440. Gary Snyder, in "The Place, the Region, and the Commons," claims that "the myths of world-creation tell you how that mountain was created and how that peninsula came to be there," and that "bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to 'love nature' or to want to 'be in harmony with Gaia.' Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience." In Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild (New York: North Point Press, 1990), pp. 26 and 39.
63. Jim Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 120 and 133. For the origin of the term bioregionalism, see Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 440. Gary Snyder, in "The Place, the Region, and the Commons," claims that "the myths of world-creation tell you how that mountain was created and how that peninsula came to be there," and that "bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to 'love nature' or to want to 'be in harmony with Gaia.' Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience." In Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild (New York: North Point Press, 1990), pp. 26 and 39.
64. Leopold, Sand County Almanac, p. 102.