42
GERALD L. YOUNG
by Parmenides’ predecessors is threatened. Belief-systems see-sawed
over the centuries: Leibnitz and Kant for eternalism and against change;
Berkeley and Hume for change; Hegel ambivalent. Contemporary
thought (process philosophy) has reafhmed the idea of change, advancing
the idea of succession of history (Whitehead’s “creative advance of
nature”) and the continuity of the irreversible process of becoming. A
useful comparison can be made of the above views of unity and process
with the present-day view of ecology held by Adams (1935) and Darling
(1963). Also interesting in comparison is the present defense of the ecosystem (because it is monistic) with the monist theory of Parmenides.
Ecological themes are also inherent in the philosophical terms macrocosm and microcosm: the first refers to the world as a whole, the second
to some part (Man?) as a model of the whole. As Levy (1967) notes, one
version of this ancient analogy claims that “man and the universe are
constructed according to the same harmonic proportions, each sympathetically attuned to the other, each a cosmos ordered according t o
reason”. The microcosm analogy emphasizes the unity or kinship of all
life in the world. Sextus Empiricus, the physician-philosopher, held that
“there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and
with the gods but even with the brute creation”. The contemporary
problem in human ecology of relating the individual and mass society is
not unlike the pre-Somatic problem of relating the One and many.
Plotinus constructed a, model of unity “where individual truths cannot
be considered apart from the whole’’ (Levy, 1967). Darwin in many ways
formalized the above thinking on change and on the unity of man and
“brute creation”. He at the same time set the stage for ecology and
changed the philosophers’ view of man. (For an excellent review of
Darwin’s impact in philosophy, see Beckner, 1967.)
The ecologist can find support for his views in much of “modern”
philosophy. For example, such a&mation is clear in Dewey’s declaration that the relationship between organism and environment is not
unilateral but bilateral. The resolution of a problem, according to
Dewey, demands the modification of environmental obstructions to
human projects as well as modifications of human behavior. Mead
adopted this analysis of two-directional (reciprocal) conditioning as
central to his philosophy. In “Mind, Self and Society” (1934) Mead
develops the “seminal” idea of experience; since “ambient and organism” effect each other reciprocally, then understanding of the process of
life depends on a notion of interrelations. Mead defines the specific form
of the bilateral conditioning process for humans as sociality-“human
experience is social in all its aspects” (Caponigri, 1971, Vol. 6).
Ethics, a formal branch of philosophy, provokes questions of central
relevance to the ecology of man (cf. Leopold, 1933; Potter, 1971). One
GERALD L. YOUNG
by Parmenides’ predecessors is threatened. Belief-systems see-sawed
over the centuries: Leibnitz and Kant for eternalism and against change;
Berkeley and Hume for change; Hegel ambivalent. Contemporary
thought (process philosophy) has reafhmed the idea of change, advancing
the idea of succession of history (Whitehead’s “creative advance of
nature”) and the continuity of the irreversible process of becoming. A
useful comparison can be made of the above views of unity and process
with the present-day view of ecology held by Adams (1935) and Darling
(1963). Also interesting in comparison is the present defense of the ecosystem (because it is monistic) with the monist theory of Parmenides.
Ecological themes are also inherent in the philosophical terms macrocosm and microcosm: the first refers to the world as a whole, the second
to some part (Man?) as a model of the whole. As Levy (1967) notes, one
version of this ancient analogy claims that “man and the universe are
constructed according to the same harmonic proportions, each sympathetically attuned to the other, each a cosmos ordered according t o
reason”. The microcosm analogy emphasizes the unity or kinship of all
life in the world. Sextus Empiricus, the physician-philosopher, held that
“there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and
with the gods but even with the brute creation”. The contemporary
problem in human ecology of relating the individual and mass society is
not unlike the pre-Somatic problem of relating the One and many.
Plotinus constructed a, model of unity “where individual truths cannot
be considered apart from the whole’’ (Levy, 1967). Darwin in many ways
formalized the above thinking on change and on the unity of man and
“brute creation”. He at the same time set the stage for ecology and
changed the philosophers’ view of man. (For an excellent review of
Darwin’s impact in philosophy, see Beckner, 1967.)
The ecologist can find support for his views in much of “modern”
philosophy. For example, such a&mation is clear in Dewey’s declaration that the relationship between organism and environment is not
unilateral but bilateral. The resolution of a problem, according to
Dewey, demands the modification of environmental obstructions to
human projects as well as modifications of human behavior. Mead
adopted this analysis of two-directional (reciprocal) conditioning as
central to his philosophy. In “Mind, Self and Society” (1934) Mead
develops the “seminal” idea of experience; since “ambient and organism” effect each other reciprocally, then understanding of the process of
life depends on a notion of interrelations. Mead defines the specific form
of the bilateral conditioning process for humans as sociality-“human
experience is social in all its aspects” (Caponigri, 1971, Vol. 6).
Ethics, a formal branch of philosophy, provokes questions of central
relevance to the ecology of man (cf. Leopold, 1933; Potter, 1971). One