Scarcity sustainability and marginality
There are important differences between the views, presented above, of natural limits by two contemporary Marxists. O'Connor concentrates on the theme of political economy and seeks to introduce the matter of political ecology only and always in relation to economic accumulation hence a second contradiction of capitalism is proposed in a tension between the development of the forces and relations of production and the conditions ofproduction. Thus the basic shape ofhistorical materialism is...
From natural theology to philosophical theology
At this point it will be objected that the common realm of God, nature and humanity is an exercise in neat natural theology and as such has no place in the theology of nature. Here we need to make some careful distinctions. Natural theology is not a single theological approach, as Wolfhart Pannenberg has conclusively shown.17 A form of natural theology that is worth defending takes its cue from core theological interpretations of the nature of God and the world. It is dedicated to that...
Confederal municipalism
Social ecologist John Clark writes 'If social ecology is an attempt to understand the dialectical movement of society within the context of a larger dialectic of society and nature, ecocommunitarianism is the project of creating a way of life consonant with that understanding.'47 Although 'confederal municipalism' is Bookchin's preferred term for his programme of anarchist politics, Clark's summary captures well the trajectory of Bookchin's political theory. Bookchin proposes a politics, a...
Ecological reconstruction of Marxism
'In almost every period since the Renaissance', writes Murray Bookchin, 'the development of revolutionary thought has been heavily influenced by abranch ofscience, often in conjunction with aschool of philosophy'.1 Can the development of the revolutionary thought of Christianity be advanced by a combination of ecological science and Marxist philosophy of praxis. 2 That is the question for this chapter. In what ways might the task of a political theology of nature be advanced through dynamic yet...
ecomaterialism
From such a reading, it is not hard to see why James O'Connor might characterise historical materialism as neither sufficiently historical nor material.14 To overcome this lack, two moves are required. First, environmental history must be grasped as the culmination of historical inquiry the history of nature is now to be included alongside the history of humanity. Second, ecology not restricted to the discipline of the life sciences must be understood as the telos of materialism in which the...
Sexedgendered relations unnatural identities
As a mode of inquiry, ecofeminism is beset by two difficulties first, to persuade feminists that their position requires them to embrace ecofeminism and, second, to persuade ecologists, especially deep ecolo-gists, that gender-blind analyses are insufficiently radical. In philosophical ecofeminism, several essays by Karen J. Warren are treated as of central importance. With these I shall begin. Although Warren notes that there is little agreement on the 'important connections 6. In making this...
Common realm
According to Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, there is an important relationship between what he calls the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences both have a tendency to work with a reified notion of the natural.1 Both sciences, Rossi-Landi continues, are non-dialectical one privileges space over time, the second interior space over the public realm. Both are 'static'. Here lies the difficulty and challenge for a theology ofnature. For a connection, restrictive and damaging, may be noted between the...