The environmental crisis that we are facing today has a philosophical dimension, for any inquiry ... more The environmental crisis that we are facing today has a philosophical dimension, for any inquiry in this direction ultimately leads one to the presence of a deep-rooted crisis in our thinking. A restructuring of the very foundations of our scientific and theoretical edifice, therefore, becomes a necessity. In other words, there is an unavoidable demand to reconsider man-world relationship in the emerging new circumstances. The human understanding of the world can be viewed from various frameworks of analysis. Within a humanistic or anthropocentric framework, the human beings are given a privileged status and the rest of the things in the world, both animate and inanimate, are considered to be for the sake of human manipulation and gratification. The emergence of technological modernity, to a great extent, is attributed to this attitude towards the world, where man enjoys a relative domination. Having realized the obvious dangers of the anthropocentric attitude, some argue that unless we take necessary steps to limit our domination over nature, it may go against the long-term interests of humanity and the well-being of all living and non-living organisms. It is imperative from our part to stop exploiting the nature, because in the course of time, it may thwart the very existence of life on earth. It categorically suggests that nature will turn against us unless we impose certain limits to our freedom. This line of thinking is generally labeled as "deep ecology". In this paper we are looking for a position that moves away from the two extreme views mentioned above.
The environmental crisis that we are facing today has a philosophical dimension, for any inquiry ... more The environmental crisis that we are facing today has a philosophical dimension, for any inquiry in this direction ultimately leads one to the presence of a deep-rooted crisis in our thinking. A restructuring of the very foundations of our scientific and theoretical edifice, therefore, becomes a necessity. In other words, there is an unavoidable demand to reconsider man-world relationship in the emerging new circumstances. The human understanding of the world can be viewed from various frameworks of analysis. Within a humanistic or anthropocentric framework, the human beings are given a privileged status and the rest of the things in the world, both animate and inanimate, are considered to be for the sake of human manipulation and gratification. The emergence of technological modernity, to a great extent, is attributed to this attitude towards the world, where man enjoys a relative domination. Having realized the obvious dangers of the anthropocentric attitude, some argue that unless we take necessary steps to limit our domination over nature, it may go against the long-term interests of humanity and the well-being of all living and non-living organisms. It is imperative from our part to stop exploiting the nature, because in the course of time, it may thwart the very existence of life on earth. It categorically suggests that nature will turn against us unless we impose certain limits to our freedom. This line of thinking is generally labeled as "deep ecology". In this paper we are looking for a position that moves away from the two extreme views mentioned above.
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