Provides a set of normative measures to assess the value of nature and proposesthe new discipline of foundational ecology as a response to environmentalcrisis.A... » 

Provides a set of normative measures to assess the value of nature and proposesthe new discipline of foundational ecology as a response to environmentalcrisis.A breakthrough analysis of our environmental crisis this book offers theinsights of thinkers such as Plato LaoTzu Spinoza and Whitehead toconstruct a set of concrete measures to estimate the value of nature.Application of these standards leads to the formation of the discipline ofFoundational Ecology as the most effective educational tool for dealing withthe next centurys environmental crises. The real value of environmentalprocesses comes alive through this systematic philosophy of nature. By offeringa cultural critique of our idea of nature Grange sets the environmental agendafor the next century.This is a brilliant work that illustrates one of its central categoriesdepth in its own construction. First it presents an original and massivelyconvincing argument that the philosophical problem of our time is not recoveryof forgotten Being as Heidegger argued but rather the encounter with noveltyin ways that overwhelm most Western philosophy. The second thing I like aboutthis book is that the topic through which the first point is argued is ecologyin the sense of human culture relating to its environment...The third thing Ilike is the cosmology itself...The fourth thing I like is that the bookdemonstrates that there is now a fairly wide circle of philosophers at home inspeculative metaphysics and its connections with ethics and social theory agroup influenced in some way by Whitehead and it shows that there is a realalternative to analytic philosophy and continental philosophy one that comesout of the American tradition. A fifth strength of the book is the naturalprogression of its argument. It lays out a speculative system in rhetoricallyclear and evocative terms treating the technical matters with precision butalso with metaphoric richness. «