Ecological Perspectives in Cities

Abstract

The article presents and discusses some problems of ecological philosophy. By means of analyzing the phenomenon of the city as a form of social, cultural, and economic integration of people, the author considers the conditions and real possibilities of achieving environmental harmony in the world. It is stressed that such a harmony should involve not only the solution of pressing environmental problems (such as the facts of environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, overpopulation), but also the adoption of the appropriate system of values, norms, rules etc. which will make it possible to systematize, on the principle of mutual respect and equality, the variety of different practices and forms of human life. The author insists that to achieve this goal we need a new, intercultural philosophy which would oppose to the traditional Euro/Ger­mano­centrism, on the one hand, and dualistic meta­physics, its philosophical foundation, on the other. As concerning ecophilosophy, this implies criticism of the following philosophical prejudices: 1) oppo­sition of nature and social life, 2) reduction of ecology to one of the departments of economics, 3) regarding reason as an a priori autonomous transcendental subject capable of cognizing reality and creating technologies leading to social, cultural and technological progress. It is concluded that these prejudices, which became philosophically based during the epoch of industrial revolution, caused global environ­men­tal and social crises. Therefore, the solution of such pressing and seemingly not related to philosophy problems as isolationism, poverty, refugees, global warming, loss of biodiversity, deterioration of ecosystems, etc., depends on a transformation of the fundamental philosophical position. Consequently, the urgent task of our contemporary time is learning to think “non-dual”, namely: to integrate thinking about nature and people, economy and ecology, cities and environment, etc. As a result, we will become able to contemplate diversities.