Synopses & Reviews
American philosopher John Dewey considered all human endeavors to be one with the natural world. In his writings, particularly Art as Experience (1934), Dewey insists on the primacy of the environment in aesthetic experience. Deweyand#8217;s conception of environment includes both the natural and the man-made. The World in Which We Occur highlights this notion in order to define and#8220;pragmatist ecology,and#8221; a practice rooted in the interface of the cultural and the natural. Neil Browne finds this to be a significant feature of some of the most important ecological writing of the last century. and#160; To fully understand human involvement in the natural world, Browne argues that disciplinary boundaries must be opened, with profound implications for the practice of democracy. The degradation of the physical environment and democratic decay, for Browne, are rooted in the same problem: our persistent belief that humans are somehow separate from their physical environment. and#160; Browne probes the work of a number of major American writers through the lens of Deweyand#8217;s philosophy. Among other texts examined are John Muirand#8217;s My First Summer in the Sierra (1911); Sea of Cortez (1941) by John Steinbeck and Edward Ricketts; Rachel Carsonand#8217;s three books about the sea, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955); John Hainesand#8217;s The Stars, the Snow, the Fire (1989); Barry Lopezand#8217;s Arctic Dreams (1986); and Terry Tempest Williamsand#8217;s Refuge (1991). Together, these textsand#8212;with their combinations of scientific observation and personal meditationand#8212;challenge the dichotomies that we have become accustomed and affirm the principles of a pragmatist ecology, one in which ecological and democratic values go hand in hand.
Review
andldquo;Neil Browne has produced an illuminating study of John Deweyandrsquo;s philosophy that provides the first sophisticated theoretical grounding for the field of ecocriticism. . . . A particular strength is its emphasis upon aspects of Deweyandrsquo;s work that anticipate intellectual developments at the end of the 20th century. These include Deweyandrsquo;s philosophical embrace of Darwinian thought and evolutionary biology; his rejection of the dualisms of mind and body, nature and culture, human and non-human that have dominated Western philosophy; and Deweyandrsquo;s insistence upon the contingency and situatedness of human knowledge of the dynamic natural world.andrdquo;andmdash;Louise Westling, author of The Green Breast of the New World: Landscape, Gender, and American Fiction
Review
"Browne (Oregon State Univ., Cascades) looks at Dewey's pragmatic ecology and applies it to frequently overlooked texts by major American environmental authors: John Muir's
My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), John Steinbeck and Edward Ricketts's
Sea of Cortez (1941), Rachel Carson's littoral texts (from
Under the Sea Wind, 1941, through
The Edge of the Sea, 1955), John Haines's
The Stars, the Snow, the Fire (1989), Barry Lopez's
Arctic Dreams (CH, May'86), and Terry Tempest Williams's
Refuge (1991). Browne pursues the argument--articulated by Hugh McDonald in
John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy (CH, Jul'04, 41-6458)--that Dewey's pragmatism is concomitant with his naturalism and democratic ideal, that Dewey is a monist and sees all experience as continuous and nonhierarchical. For example, Browne successfully illustrates Lopez's 'green' perspective in which human and nonhuman life are inextricably dependent, one of Lawrence Buell's requirements for a text to be 'environmental' (per his canonical
The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture, CH, Sep'95, 33-0121). This crisp study, Browne's first book, derives from an article he contributed to
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment: ISLE (summer 2004), 'Activating the 'Art of Knowing': John Dewey, Pragmatist Ecology, and Environmental Writing.'and#160;Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty."
and#147;Neil Browne has produced an illuminating study of John Deweyand#8217;s philosophy that provides the first sophisticated theoretical grounding for the field of ecocriticism. . . . A particular strength is its emphasis upon aspects of Deweyand#8217;s work that anticipate intellectual developments at the end of the 20th century. These include Deweyand#8217;s philosophical embrace of Darwinian thought and evolutionary biology; his rejection of the dualisms of mind and body, nature and culture, human and non-human that have dominated Western philosophy; and Deweyand#8217;s insistence upon the contingency and situatedness of human knowledge of the dynamic natural world.and#8221; and#151;Louise Westling, author of The Green Breast of the New World: Landscape, Gender, and American Fiction
Synopsis
The World in Which We Occur highlightsand#160;Dewey's notion in order to define and#8220;pragmatist ecology,and#8221; a practice rooted in the interface of the cultural and the natural. Neil Browne finds this to be a significant feature of some of the most important ecological writing of the last century
About the Author
Neil W. Browne is Assistant Professor of English at Oregon State University Cascades, where he teaches American literature and culture.