ECOLOGICAL CONVERSATIONS:COMMUNITARIANISM, POSTMODERNISM AND NATURE

The interpretative work of Dreyfus, Gadamer, Nussbaumand Taylor is used in this essay to explore the naturalenvironment as a shared ecological and socialcommonality. The paper focuses on the supposition thatthe natural world possesses intrinsic value and newpolitical structures are needed. The paper exploresengaging with multiple cultures on environmentalmatters. Political interpreters offer processes ofequal facilitation and maximisation that work toinclude environmental values in democratic thought.Interpreters differ from earth-based and neo-conservative environmental approaches that dominatemodern debates. The differences involve understandingthe role of practical reasoning and how humanityinteracts with the natural world. Intriguingly, then,interpreters concur with Deep Ecologists that naturepossesses intrinsic value, but do so guided by an idealof authenticity. New political structures are needed.Authenticity operates at two levels. First,authenticity is about being true to the practices andenvironments we live in. Second, the ideal ofauthenticity considers the fullness of nature becauseit connects to Rousseau’s argument that humanity is the‘voice of nature’. From Rousseau and interpretativethought this thinking shapes the injunction thatthrough face-to-face community relationships members ofcommunities can be better informed about wasteful anddamaging resource consumption and the ecologicalburdens to be borne by all.

1. Introduction: Environmental Values

Since the 17th Century Enlightenment, the pre-eminent

economic and political theories have offered a

controlling, dominating and technical attitude towards

the natural environment. These theories have been

2

inspired by a philosophy that is guided by a disenchanted

vision of the natural world that is said to contain only

instrumental value. This paper uses the work of Charles

Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus to argue that our relationships

with the natural environment cannot be modelled with

abstract scientific neatness and a focus on common

purposes is needed.1 A central theme to keep in mind is

that new ways to govern modern communities are needed.

That is, if we are to align our activities with the

ecosystems and environments in which we live.

This essay examines the relationships between

humanity and the natural environment utilising the

resources associated with the political art of

interpretation. The art of interpretation is associated

with the work of Dreyfus, Gadamer,2 Heidegger,3 Nussbaum4

1 Often instrumental theories are aligned with a version ofutilitarianism that reflects an economic approach to thenatural environment. As a consequence, the natural environmenthas been treated as a commodity and its non-instrumental valuessubmerged by a utilitarian shaped social imaginary.

2 Gadamer, H.G., Truth and Method, fifth reproduction, (trans GarrettBarden and John Cummings), Sheed and Ward Ltd, London, 1975 &also Gadamer, H. G., Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies, NewHaven, Yale University Press, 1976.

3 Heidegger, M., Being and Time, (trans., J. Macquarrie and EdwardRobinson), New York, Harper and Rowe, 1962.

4 Nussbaum, M., Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality and SpeciesMembership, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,Massachusetts, 2007.

3

and Taylor.5 Political ideas from their work are used to

comment on the environmental differences between

interpretative and postmodern positions. Hereafter,

their hermeneutic work will be referred to as the art of

political interpretation.6

Interpreters criticise dominant Cartesian and

Western thinking that humanity can control and manage the

natural environment. They explore not only the

limitations with instrumental and utilitarian thinking,

but explore a role for perception to visualise and

interact with the world. From their viewpoint, the

intrinsic and subliminal dimensions of the natural

environment are revealed using the power of perception

and practical reason. The role for perception is

connected with a fundamental reformulation of humanity’s

practical reason. Humanity’s treatment of the natural

environment is important not only for species survival

5 Taylor, A Secular Age, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.6 Taylor now prefers the label ‘post-liberal’, in this essay I

use the term ‘interpreters’ to refer to the ideas of Dreyfus,Gadamer, Nussbaum and Taylor. Abbey, R., ‘Taylor as aPostliberal Theorist of Politics’, in Perspectives On The Philosophy ofCharles Taylor, (edited by Arto Laitinen and Nicholas H. Smith),Acte Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 71, 2002, pp. 149–165 and Abbey, R.Charles Taylor, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.

4

purposes, but reflects our understanding of our place in

the natural world. These observations, stemming from

interpretative phenomenology, assist in understanding the

political processes involving humanity’s objectifying

powers. The power to change planetary ecosystems is

occurring at an increasing rate with concomitant

implications for political institutions and theory.

The interpretative and communitarian locus classicus is

Taylor’s work on Hegel, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and

Rousseau. His work provides a multifaceted understanding

of the specificity of communal life, and the common

purposes that exist for everyone as included within the

natural environment. The essay is in four sections and

begins by outlining key features of the art of

interpretation. Second, some criticisms of Taylor’s

interpretative model are outlined that is then followed

by a response to postmodern critiques as advanced by

Richard Rorty. The issue to keep in mind is that

interpreters attempt to escape the iron cage of

bureaucratic reason by exploring connections between our

5

concepts and categories and our intuitions, perceptions

and second nature.

SECTION I: Seeing the World, Its Intrinsic Value & Our

Being

The art of interpretation is an ethic that relies on an

expressive theory of language and offers a different way

to consider the human situation. Interpreters argue that

ethics really should be about ironing out differences in

a spirit of mutual healing based on magnanimity and

forgiveneness – such is the means to recognise different

conceptions of the good. The ethical aim is to

reinvigorate a full role for our moral sensibility

between people and then recognise our embeddedness in the

world. Speculating, Taylor argues that:

It seems to me that every anthropocentrism pays aterrible price in impoverishment in this regard. Deepecologists tend to concur from one point of view,theists from another. And I am driven to this positionfrom both.7

Here Taylor offers a hint at the dilemmas which

underpinned his Sources of the Self, which his critics claim,

leave him whistling in the dark. On such a view, there7 Taylor, C., ‘Response to my Critics’, Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research, Vol. 54, No. 1, 1994, p. 13.

6

is no reason why humanity has to reshape the natural

environment for economic purposes only. The

interpretative dimensions associated with human reason

offer scope to design new and different means to relate

with the natural world. There do not exist any

indubitable reasons why our communities should be limited

by a path dictated by instrumental reason and

unrestrained consumerism.

Interpreters begin their exegesis by explaining how

our current practices have ignored how we are related to

and shaped by the world we live in. They emphasise

feeling and perception as having a valid role in the

experience of embodied agents making their way in the

world. Taylor continues that political theory relies

excessively on adapting a model of the natural sciences

without full consideration of mind and world dualisms.

Taylor states the problems with the dominant ideology:

There is a big mistake operating in our culture, a(mis)understanding of what it is to know, which has haddire effects on both theory and practice in a host ofdomains. To sum it up in a pithy formula, we might saythat we (mis)understand knowledge as “mediational”. Inits original form, this emerged in the idea that wegrasp external reality through internalrepresentations. Descartes in one of his letters,declared himself “assure, que je ne puis avoir aucuneconnaissance de ce qui est hors de moi, que par

7

l’entremise des idees que j’ai eu en moi”.8 Whenstates of minds correctly and reliably represent whatis out there, there is knowledge.9

Taylor is criticising Descartes’ mediational picture of

the world and offers a different theory that the mind is

in the world and not separate from it. He argues that

Descartes picture was part of a Scientific Revolution

that had a predilection for measurement, procedure and

technique. This framework has been applied to the

humanities without fully addressing its applicability –

Taylor’s concern is that scientific approaches to

governance might not be the means to order human

differences and affairs. From this observation,

interpreters argue that a scientific approach treats the

natural environmental as a simple commodity and submerges

other ways to value the natural environment. The

8 From the letter to Gibieuf, 19th January, 1642, which comes fromthe mediational passage ‘You inquire about the principle bywhich I claim to know that the idea I have of something is notan idea made inadequate by the abstraction of my intellect. I derive thisknowledge purely from my own thought or consciousness. I amcertain that I can have no knowledge of what is outside meexcept by means of the ideas I have within me; and so I takegreat care not to relate my judgements immediately to things inthe world, and not to attribute to such things anythingpositive which I do not first perceive in the ideas of them(Descartes Philosophical Letters, translated by Anthony Kenny,Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 123).

9 Taylor as quoted in Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’,op. cit., p. 53.

8

application of a technical method to the humanities can

submerge an appreciation of the moral frameworks more

applicable to human sciences. Taylor explains the

dilemmas confronting humanity:

For the two powerful aspirations – to expressive unityand to radical autonomy – have remained central topreoccupations of modern man; and hope to combine themcannot but recur in one form or another, be it inMarxism or integral to anarchism, technologicalUtopianism or the return to nature. The Romanticrebellion continues undiminished, returning ever inunpredictable new forms – Dadaism, Surrealism, theyearning of the ‘hippy’, the contemporary cult ofunrepressed consciousness. With all this surroundingus we cannot avoid being referred back to the firstgreat synthesis which was meant to resolve our centraldilemma: which failed but which remains somehowunsurpassed.10

Humanity’s power of reason and rationality provide the

human race with objectifying powers that transform the

natural environment. Humanity is confronted with a

choice in that it has the power to radically transform

the planet for economic purposes, or to synthesise our

lives in accordance with the ecosystems in which we live.

This does mean that we follow nature’s spontaneous

processes as some Deep Ecologists and Earth Firsters!

might advocate. It does imply, however, that people have

10 Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170.

9

the ability to choose different life-plans and that these

choices are ultimately for communities to make. It is

probably for this reason that Martha Nussbaum suggests

that we rethink our ethical place in the world – she

offered the useful idea that humanity has the means to

act as guardian of the earth.

Nevertheless, before arriving at Nussbaum’s

conclusion a first step in hermeneutic thinking involves

restructuring debates, such as those over the natural

environment as ontological ones. On this view,

ontological features involve ‘the factors that you invoke

to account for social life’ – the way that we explain the

world11 and involve the terms ‘that you accept as ultimate

in the order of explanation’ and provide the structures

through which we define and explore values.12 Advocacy

issues, on the other hand, concern the moral stand or

policy that one adopts, and includes the connections

between common goods, individual rights, in addition to

11 Taylor, C., ‘Cross-purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate’,in Rosenblum, N. (ed.), Liberalism and the Moral Life, Cambridge,Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 160.

12 Ibid.

10

ecological values. Taylor has explained these differences

and the implications that follow:

Taking an ontological position doesn’t amount toadvocating something; but at the same time, theontological does help to define the options it ismeaningful to support by advocacy. The latterconnection explains how ontological theses can be farfrom innocent. Your ontological proposition, if true,can show that your neighbor’s favorite social order isan impossibility or carries a price he or she did notcount with. But this should not induce us to thinkthat the proposition amounts to the advocacy of somealternative.13

Taylor’s work on authenticity frames the field of

possibilities available to people. Thus, our stance

toward the natural environment is related to the way we

visualise and define it – this thinking reinforces the

idea of nature as a source of the self. Taylor extends

Rousseau ‘voice within’ – as a necessary condition of

being in the world but does not subscribe to the idea

that nature acts as an ethical yardstick of justice.14

For Taylor, it is people who have moral capacities

and frameworks that allow them to see the intrinsic

values in the natural world.15 The argument for moral

awareness then informs a pragmatism that does not dismiss

the importance of the scientific method, but reflects an

13 Ibid. p. 161.14 Taylor, Sources…, op. cit., pp. 75-80.15 Ibid.

11

argument that science cannot be simply transferred to the

humanities.16 The art of interpretation is guided by the

provision of better reasons that reflect and recognise

the value of culture, tradition and the environments in

which we live and act. This is not to criticise the

power of science and technique, but involves recognising

that such methods do not fully capture the factors that

make up the human condition. On this view, knowledge and

understanding involve a continual search to build up

richer pictures of the human condition and this includes

our interactions with nature. Nature is not simply a

technical resource to be consumed.

Furthermore, interpreters are not arguing that moral

values merely reflect the practices that exist in

communities at a particular moment in time. Nor are they

arguing that in some sense ethics and moral theory emerge16 Here, interpreters concur with environmental pragmatist’s,

such as Bryan Norton, who suggest how theory might benefit ifit were to examine epistemic questions in understandinghumanity’s place in the world. Environmental pragmatists, suchas Bryan Norton, offer a political approach that emphasisespolitical compromise while eschewing the search for intrinsicvalue. Norton argues that such a philosophy loses sight ofthose practices that make possible every day coping and action.Interpreters, however, differ from environmental pragmatists inthe manner in which they search to reveal the key factorsmotivating the human condition. Critics claim, however, claimthat pragmatism leaves untouched core principles of modernitythat have shaped modern anthropocentric stances toward nature.

12

timelessly simply out of conversation and discourse.

They engage debates concerning moral realism, coping,

second nature and relationships with multiple cultures.

Of course, how we read and discuss different texts is

always open to correction, re-interpretation or revision.

It is for such reasons that principles of equal

facilitation and maximisation are guided by the provision

of practical reasons. Of course Taylor does not follow

the implications of Deep Ecology to an earth-based ethic,

nor does he subscribe to illiberal communities that would

support nature-oriented spirituality and the divinity of

nature.

Taylor avoids Earth First arguments that deny the

transcendent and offers argument that celebrates values

derived from moral and theistic perspective. He argues,

by way of comparison to many environmental positions,

that in matters pertaining to human affairs these

perspectives have equal value to that of the application

of a scientific method. The aim of the framework is to

recognise that it is people who operate through moral

frameworks and in matters pertaining to the human

13

condition it is in providing better explanations and

interpretations that individuals come in touch with the

natural world. In celebrating difference, interpreters

are aware that many postmodern positions potentially

leave people trapped in a whirlpool of indecision and

difference. This response applies to postmodernists to

whom moral sources ignore the differences important for

people’s identity. The art of interpretation aims to

allow people to see the world in a non-calculative manner

and in a way that does not deny the postmodern quest to

confront difference.

To this point, it has been argued that critics

overlook the different threads in the Dreyfus, Gadamer

and Taylor school of thought. Critics, such as Marks,

misinterpret the idea that humanity is a voice of nature

and tend to read these ideas as if the natural

environment is a yardstick that determines the justice of

moral maxims. Hans Georg Gadamer’s work on moral

awareness is very relevant to this discussion. He argues

that agents imbued with a moral sense have a means to

14

glimpse the intrinsic value of the natural environment.

Gadamer states:

That nature is beautiful arouses interest only insomeone who ‘already set his interest deep in themorally good.’ Hence the interest in natural beauty is‘akin to the moral.’ By observing the unintentionalconsonance of nature with our wholly disinterestedpleasure - i.e., the wonderful purposiveness(ZweckmaBigkeit) of nature for us, it points to us asthe ultimate purpose of creation, to the ‘moral side ofour being’.17

Here Gadamer is explaining that people have the moral

frameworks that allow the intrinsic value in nature to be

expressed and articulated. Accordingly, those not so

predisposed perpetuate a mindset that conceives of nature

in economic and technical ways only. This sets in place

a cultural malaise based on not only instrumental reason

but an amoral ethic that is shaped by Nietzschean

inspired thinking. Taylor argues that to ignore our

moral sources and the potential role of theism ends up

detaching people from the natural world.

Arguably, Nietzsche’s amoralism offers a nihilistic

vision of the world – a world devoid of intrinsic meaning

and virtue. Associated with such a perspective are those

postmodern theorists who claim that the natural

17 Gadamer, Truth and Method, op. cit., pp. 50-51.

15

environment is a simple social construct. Communitarians

and interpreters counter by arguing that it is human

beings who have the moral frameworks that allow an

appreciation of nature’s value to emerge. Gadamer

continues and argues that it is through language that

people are able to express the values that we feel when

we perceive and interact in the world. There is a sense

in which nature possesses intrinsic value and it is for

embodied agents to express it. This thinking builds a

bridge between humanity and nature – authenticity is

achieved when our individual means to cope with the world

are mediated and reconciled with others and the natural

world. Gadamer and Taylor are not arguing that perception

trumps reason such that the natural environment acts as

normative ideals. This idea can be found in Hegel’s

Phenomenology of Spirit, but what is useful is how that idea

leads to an approach that emphasises the development of

commonalities between people and the natural world. They

move beyond Hegelian philosophy to remind political

theorists of Heidegger’s observation that Western

societies define the natural environment as a gigantic

16

reserve. At the very least, direct unproblematic

realists (interpreters) move philosophy beyond reliance

on intuition and procedure to a radically new way to

think about human interactions with the world.18 No

longer are we enthralled by the inner-outer picture of

mind and world, but integrally connected with the natural

world. In this way humanity is put in touch with

nature’s intrinsic values. This argument is challenged

by postmodern ironists to whom interpreters construct a

theory of knowledge that imposes common values on

communities.

Interpreters respond by explaining how significant

elements may form part of a potentially meaningful

totality which contains lacunae, or missing pieces of

evidence to be reconstructed through historical inquiry.

Those significant elements may be fluid, but they are not

purely subjective, and so cannot be approached in a

relativistic manner. They may be ascertained in

hermeneutic fashion – in the same manner as text. As if

18 Taylor, C., ‘Gadamer on the Human Sciences’, (ed.), Robert J.Dostal, The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 126-143.

17

in response to this postmodern critique, Taylor has

argued:

On this model – to offer here at any rate a firstapproximation – practical arguments start off on thebasis that my opponent already shares at least some ofthe fundamental dispositions toward good and rightwhich guide me. The error comes from confusion,unclarity, or an unwillingness to face some of what hecannot lucidly repudiate; and reasoning aims to show upthis error.19

Through practical reasoning, unity and diversity are

balanced in hermeneutic fashion whereby this approach

acts to respond to the limitations of liberal neutrality

and never ending postmodern deconstruction. A further

interpretative point is that realism and skilful coping

put us in touch with the natural environment; that is,

once it is realised that understanding and knowledge can

reveal and express value in context. Here, Taylor makes

an interesting hermeneutic move to explain how faculties

of understanding utilise spontaneous capacities to

interpret the world. Taylor argues:

Spontaneity at all levels is guided by the goal ofgetting it right; being clearly “forced” to come tosome conclusion is not its negation, but its highestfulfilment. The same intrinsic relation betweenspontaneity and necessity that we see in the Kantianmoral sage, and the Polanyian scientist … straining

19 Taylor, C., ‘Explanation and Practical Reason’, in Nussbaum, M.and Sen, A. (eds.), The Quality of Life, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1993, pp. 208–209.

18

every faculty to get an accurate take on the ever-changing lines of force in the field. But the mediumhere is not moral reflection or theoreticalrepresentation, but the behavioural affordances ofattack and defence.20

This passage implies that our coping skills put us in

touch with not only objective values, but also provide

the means to access intrinsic values. In the above

passage the values we experience using our coping skill

are shaped in the affordances of attack and defence (as

reflected in debate and dialogue). Accordingly, our

interpretative and scientific methods create richer

interpretations through progressive enquiry: the issue is

not just about nature’s intrinsic value of nature, but

also our authentic interactions with it. The ideal of

authenticity reflects our embeddedness with others as

well as the natural environment. From this perspective,

Taylor takes the interpretive debate further maintaining

that our practices can be aligned with authentic

precision to reveal the value of nature – an ethic of

authenticity reveals the inadequacies of anthropocentric

20 H. L. Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’, in Ruth Abbey(ed.) Charles Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),p., 60.

19

stances and how values are revealed through our

practices.

Instrumental reason leads to an economic world view

associated with individualism and negative freedom; that

is, freedom to pursue whatever ends individuals see fit.

However, there is more to freedom than radical autonomy

and individualism. Freedom involves our relationships in

communities and with the natural environment we share

with other people. Taylor offers the following simple

example about how we draw on our background coping skills

(second nature) when we make claims about reality. These

environmental arguments overlap with axioms of Deep

Ecology and concur that humanity’s controlling and

dominating attitude submerges other values that can be

found in nature. Through practical reason people engage

with the world and consider how perception plays a means

in visualising the world. Modern naturalistic meta-

ethics submerge intrinsic values and overplay the role of

external standards of adjudication. For the purposes of

environmental awareness, such thinking provides a

different way to consider nature’s value. It is for this

20

reason that interpreters point to our second nature as it

incorporates feeling, empathy and subliminal dimensions

of our humanity. Dreyfus summarised this aspect of the

interpretative method:

[W]e can only understand how we are normally in touchwith the cosmos…when we see that we are notdisembodied, detached, contemplators, but rather,embodied, involved coping agents.21

In recognising the existence of these perceptual and

coping skills, it is then possible to respond to liberals

and postmodernists to whom community and nature are

external standards that can be imposed by a recalcitrant

tyrant. Critics overlook his realism and anti-

meditational epistemology that overcomes the rigidity in

modern liberal and postmodern frameworks. It is a

category error, therefore, to argue that Taylor offers an

ethic of authenticity which relies on nature as an

external standard; rather, his framework is about

examining how different practices reveal different

thinking and other ways to live in the world.

The art of interpretation avoids imposing

preconceived value on objects, and support for this

21 Dreyfus, H. ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’, op. cit., p. 68.

21

argument can be found when he emphasises that the

ontological level shapes, but does not determine the

social, political and cultural goods communities may

advocate. Taylor visualises the world, rethinks our

beliefs, and how our choices impact on the natural

environment. He explains:

[W]hat allows us to make the difference is a rich,largely implicit, and of course inherently contestableunderstanding of what the important meanings andpurposes of human life are.22

Here interpretation is linked to a realism that rethinks

the politics of the ‘environmental other’, the ‘end of

history’ and the ‘death of man’. An ideal of

authenticity builds a different pathway where

commonalities are nurtured and sustained in a dialogic

society.

Thus, modern hermeneutic thought is relevant to

environmental politics as it is through our practices

that disclose intrinsic values. Authenticity is about

being true to a role and understanding the world we live

in. It is for this reason that Taylor’s (anti-)

22 Taylor, C., ‘Taylor and Foucault on Power and Freedom: AReply’, Political Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1989, p. 280. See alsoHeidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170.

22

epistemology defines agents as purposive beings who

‘pursue their goals in a context imbued meaning’.23 This

is where engagement with the world involves coming to

terms with how context influences the values we express.

The interpretative strategy observes that the

construction of knowledge is not just theoretical inter alia,

but involves interactions with others and the world. It

is at this point that Taylor argues that our

interpretations are a vital ingredient and medium through

which knowledge is constructed. Here, Taylor is arguing

that in the human sciences it is the role of language

which requires articulation and explanation – the natural

scientific method cannot be simply transferred across.

Taylor begins by arguing that people are self-

interpreting entities who posses perceptual as well as

conceptual skills that actually put them in touch with

the world. He states:

To show how the coherentist claim that reasoning fromother beliefs is the only way particular beliefs can begrounded is so far from obvious as to be plain false,we need to step outside the mediational picture, andthink in terms of the kind of embedded knowing whichHeidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Todes have thematized. Ofcourse, we check our claims against reality. “Johnny

23 Abbey, ‘Recognising Taylor Rightly’, Ethnicities, 3, 1, 2003, p.127.

23

go into the room and tell me whether the picture iscrooked”. Johnny emerges from the room with a view tothe matter, but checking is comparing the problematizedbelief with his belief about the matter, in this caseby going and looking. What is assumed when we give theorder is that Johnny knows, as most of us do, how toform a reliable view of this kind of matter. He knowshow to go and stand at the appropriate distance and inthe right orientation, to get what Merleau-Ponty callsa maximal grip on the object. What justifies Johnny’sbelief is his being able to deal with objects in thisway, which is, of course, inseparable from the otherways he is able to use them, manipulate, get aroundamong them, etc. When he goes and checks he uses thismultiple ability to cope, and his sense of his abilityto cope gives him confidence in his judgement as hereports it to us.24

Taylor's point is that we don't need to posit the human

being primarily as the subject of mental represenetations

to understand rule-following behavior or something like

checking the mirror on the wall. Following Heidegger,

Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, and Wittgenstein, Taylor

argues that it is mistaken to presuppose that we are

inherently cut off from the world and our understanding

of it essentially mediated by mental representations.

When we act, for example, we act with our bodies whether

linguistically or through grasping with the hand. But

little of what is involved in our action, whether the

goals of action or the rule specifying movements

consciously articulated. In fact, he argues, it is only

24 Ibid. p. 56.

24

against an unarticulated background that representations

can make sense to us at all. Each person takes in the

world and then processes that information to arrive at

their decision.

Often critics overlook the role of perception in

Taylor’s work and how it relates to common goods,

language and background values are a part of a broader

whole. Of course, the various parts of the whole are

always open to re-interpretation and re-consideration.

The natural environment, however, is a common endeavour

that includes humanity and can be conceived as a text in

which we live. This observation emanates from Hegel’s

argument that the mind is in the world and is not

separate from that world. This proposition requires

different structures and ideas to meaningfully engage

with humanity’s being-in-the-world. Taylor develops

these ideas expressing a political perspective that re-

theorises politics, reconsiders humanity’s place in the

world, and restructures our sense of self in the world.

25

Part II. Objections and Contrary Opinions

A useful way to explore the interpretative method is to

review some important criticisms. One obvious criticism

is that interpreters such as Dreyfus, Gadamer, Heidegger,

Nussbaum and Taylor are not generally regarded as

environmental philosophers. This objection can be

addressed when interpreters explain that the full

implications of our actions in the world cannot be

explained simply by scientific methods. Of course,

instrumental theorists and technocrats respond by arguing

that environmental problems can be solved using the

techniques of sustainable management. However, the

question about the type of world we are creating remains

an open one? Modern social science ignores the

interpretative approach and in doing so detaches people

from their internal sources of value that express and

perceive their place in the world.

A further problem with current instrumental horizons

of meaning is reflected in patterns of sustainable

development: that is, they do not question how modern

society has come to its present anthropocentric stance to

26

the world. This is because sustainability remains

defined within an economic growth paradigm itself

reflective of a primitive ontology.25 The ontology on

which sustainability is based does not consider fully how

sustainable patterns will be achieved in the current

system; that is, it relies on anthropocentric ecological

policy where environmental restraint is ‘shown as

necessary for human purposes’ only.

In an important essay Jonathan Marks26 criticises

Taylor’s for elevating community obligations over

individual autonomy. This is because Taylor relies too

heavily on Rousseau’s physiodicy which is said to fail in

developing fair and just solutions. Marks claims that

Taylor’s emphasis on community and significance27 reflect

a mis-reading of Rousseau’s thinking. Marks argues:

But if Rousseau’s understanding of obligation tocommunity is too exclusionary, it may point out onesense in which Taylor has too inclusive anunderstanding of such obligation. For if the communityearns a citizen’s loyalty by providing him with an

25 Taylor, C., ‘Politics of the Steady State’, New Universities Quarterly,Vol. 32, No. 2, 1978, pp. 157-184.

26 Marks, J., ‘Misreading One’s Sources: Charles Taylor’sRousseau’, American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, No. 1, 2005,pp. 119-134.

27 Taylor, C., ‘The Significance of Significance: The Case ofCognitive Psychology’, in Mitchell, S. and Rosen, M. (eds.),The Need for Interpretation: Contemporary Conceptions of the Philosopher’s Task,London, The Athlone Press, 1983, pp. 141-169.

27

identity rather than moral citizenship, with moraldepth rather than morality, it is difficult to see howone avoids obligations to very bad communities.28

Identity and moral depth are assumed to lead to a

politics that justifies a volk or community-centred focus.

This argument, also developed by philosophical giants

such as Habermas, accuses Taylor of using the natural

environmental as a yardstick of justice.29 But this

argument does not come to terms with why Taylor returned

to Rousseau’s work and how he developed those insights to

avoid that very criticism.

Indeed, Rousseau coined the phrase, the ‘voice of

nature’, that has led to the criticism it is part of a

complex anti-liberal modus vivendi. Marks, however, argues

that interpreters might unwittingly end up justifying

very bad communities,30 but this interpretation ignores

the philosophical sense of adventure involved in

understanding our place in the world. Interpretation

involves exploring how our moral sense connects us with

28 Marks, ‘Misreading One’s Sources: Charles Taylor’s Rousseau’,op. cit., p. 130.

29 Habermas, ‘Struggles for Recognition in the ConstitutionalDemocratic State’, op. cit., pp. 130–131.

30 Marks, ‘Misreading One’s Sources: Charles Taylor’s Rousseau’,op. cit., p. 130.

28

the world, where moral sense is a way of thinking to

recognise the goods that confront each individual.

Critical of Taylor, Marks argues that the

interpretative ethical formation inevitably supports a

cultural and uniform political structure. This is

because the common good could be used by Machiavellian

type administrators who have the mandate to override

individual autonomy. For Marks, Taylor’s support for

community and identity conceivably rides roughshod over

individual autonomy. This problem has also been

expressed in the belief that Taylor is too close to

Heidegger’s political thought, condemned by many for its

affiliations with National Socialism. The environmental

issue, however, is an ontological consideration and at

that level Taylor concurs with aspects of Deep Ecology.31

He differs in his enthusiastic celebration and

recognition of theism.32 A trite response is that a

theorist of Taylor’s calibre would certainly not endorse

31 Abbey, R., ‘More Perspectives on Communitarianism’, in AustralianQuarterly, Vol. 69, No. 2, 1997, pp. 1–11; Abbey, R. Charles Taylor,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001 and Abbey, R., ‘Taylor asa Postliberal Theorist of Politics’, in Perspectives On The Philosophyof Charles Taylor, (edited by Arto Laitinen and Nicholas H. Smith),Acte Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 71, 2002, pp. 149–165.

32 Taylor, ‘Response to my Critics’, op. cit., p. 13.

29

the illiberal politics associated with Deep Ecology, or

Nazism. He is well aware of the dangers in Heideggerian

visions of a technological world. Of course, he is not

an earth based environmentalist and has stated that his

environmental perspective emanates from an inter-play

between the politics of recognition and the role of

theism in a secular world.33 His work on theism and

sources of the modern self reflect an enduring commitment

to fundamental human rights and the need to recognise

other values.

From postmodern quarters, Baudrillard and Rorty,

claim that moral realism supports intrinsic value

arguments but never proves it. As a result, important

philosophical concepts are left hanging in the air

because he blames anthropocentricism for the spiritual

decline in modern societies. In the celebration of

difference, Taylor’s vision nurtures intrinsic values as

an important feature of our humanity. Here, Taylor uses

the work of Gadamer and Heidegger to guide an

enthusiastic commitment to practical reason; namely, a

commitment that respects difference in a good society.

33 Taylor, A Secular Age, op. cit., p. ix.

30

The difference-commonality conundrum is addressed in a

political structure that works to develop commonalities

between citizens and respect difference.

Accordingly, the diverse elements making up a

community are accorded respect in a political and social

structure nurturing such commonalities. This, of course,

is designed to accord respect to those differences that

include those over the natural environment. Taylor

advocates a politics that focuses on commonalities and

this is a theme explored in his work on federal

structures.34 For Taylor, a federal structure is like a

patchwork quilt that when combined creates a meaningful

whole. That is, when the elements of the structure are

assembled together the outcome is a political mosaic

which when combined form a greater whole. However, from

postmodern quarters, political problems are alleged to

emerge if we reconcile ourselves with the natural

environment. For example Baudrillard has argued:

34 Interpreters differ from environmentalists such as, J. BairdCallicott, who refers to himself as a communitarian. However,the natural environment is more than an entity with intrinsicvalue – it is a necessary condition of our being in the world.A further question involves why environmental theory hasinvested in postmodern ideology which may reflect its ownintuitive sense of value.

31

In short, it is not by expurgating evil that weliberate good. Worse, by liberating good, we alsoliberate evil. And this is only right: it is the ruleof the symbolic game. It is the inseparability of goodand evil which constitutes our true equilibrium, ourtrue balance. We ought not to entertain the illusionthat we might separate the two, that we might cultivategood and happiness in a pure state and expel evil andsorrow as wastes. That is the terroristic dream of thetransparency of good, which very quickly ends in itsopposite, the transparency of evil.

We must not reconcile ourselves with nature.35

Baudrillard’s postmodern perspective assumes that

communitarian-interpretation leads necessarily to a

disciplined and uniform political structure. This

postmodern position reflects a misological stance toward

reason and rationality. While postmodern thinking

locates and explores the sources of discordant power,

interpretation is required to imagine a viable response.

Postmodern thinkers celebrate an anti-realist

epistemology that cut us off from nature’s intrinsic

value.

Part III: Response to Rorty – The Philosophy of Nature

Baudrillard, Marks and Rorty ask Taylor to explain what

he means when he uses Rousseau’s argument that humanity

35 Baudrillard, The Illusions of the End, op. cit., p. 82.

32

is the ‘voice of nature’.36 Richard Rorty argues that

Taylor’s concerns are unfocused and offer little in the

way of alternatives to modernity’s twin dangers –

domination and control. Rorty argument implies that

interpreters are too close to the Deep Ecological axiom

that nature possesses intrinsic values. He claims that

interpreters do not offer worked out alternatives to

economic and technical solutions and that the limits of

anthropocentricism are unlikely to be solved by the art

of interpretation and moral theory.

Implicit in Rorty’s critique is the argument that

humanity is not a ‘voice of nature’, but a voice from

that world – that people have been thrown into the world,

but cannot escape from it. Essentially an anti-realist,

Rorty maintains that it is not possible to visualise the

world beyond our current concepts and categories (see

Section IV of this essay). A key feature of the art of

interpretation is its emphasis on creating and developing

commonalities and this includes those between humanity

and nature. Interpreters utilise hermeneutic strategies

36 Taylor, Sources of The Self, p. 358 here Taylor is quoting Rousseau,Emile, p. 355.

33

as they concern morality, interpretation, the

theorisation of politics and the art of understanding

knowledge are used. In terms of ecological politics,

these diverse strands of thought require careful

attention and careful development. This is because not

all elements can be easily combined and this is because

they derive from different contexts and problematic

settings. Taylor explains:

These are several of the “axes” on which people wereinduced to attack the dominant view of human agency andorder, the order on which, in a sense, modern Europeaneconomic and political civilization was being largelybuilt. Not all critics attacked on all axes, ofcourse, but what they had in common was the sense thatthe danger which awaits us in our culture takes acertain form. We are tempted to draw the limits of ourlife too narrowly, to be concerned exclusively with anarrow range of internally-generated goals. In doingthis we are closing ourselves to other, greater goals.These might be seen as originating outside of us, fromGod, or from the whole of nature, or from humanity; orthey might be seen as goals which arise indeed within,but which push us to greatness, heroism, dedication,devotion to our fellow human beings, and which are nowbeing suppressed and denied.37

In the above passage Taylor argues that we urgently need

new insights into the human condition and a full account

of the human striving for meaning and spiritual

direction. The ethical implication of this passage for

37 Taylor A Secular Age, op. cit., p. 338.

34

environmental theory is that we do not even begin to see

where we have to restructure our societies as long as we

‘accept the complacent myth that people like us,

enlightened secularists or believers, are not part of the

problem.’38

Interpreters argue that Western societies will pay a

high environmental price if we allow this kind of muddled

thinking to prevail. That price will be in the form of

anomie, cultural disharmony, and environmental damage –

interpreters rethink our relationships with the natural

world. They offer a strong-form realism that is said to

put people in touch with the external world in a non-

causal manner. That is, there are values in the world

independent of the mind that leads to the argument that

external values are as real as the output derived from

scientific approaches. Taylor explains:

There is a sense in which values are not part of the“objective” universe, but this cannot justify ourconsidering them less real for all that. Values arenot “in the universe” in the sense that, if we wereabsent, values attributions could get no purchase onit. That is because an account of what we areattributing, of various value properties, like

38 Taylor, C., ‘Statement’.http://www.templetonprize.org/ct_statement.html, accessed 21st

January 2008.

35

‘attractive’ and ‘dangerous’ involves at some level orother some reference to their impact on us.39

On Taylor’s view intrinsic values exist and can in

certain circumstances command our allegiance. These

arguments are disputed by Richard Rorty in his postmodern

response that criticises the politics of reconciliation,

the art of interpretation, and representational realism.

This long-running dispute concerns the distinctions

between the natural and social sciences as they impact on

how we are to understand our place in the natural world.

Rorty believes that once these distinctions have broken

down then philosophy’s role is complete. Dreyfus and

Taylor respond by arguing that the methods of the social

science require new criteria and new thinking to

understand humanity’s place in the world. They question

the relativism within postmodernism and offer a vision of

a reconciled society between people and with nature.

Dreyfus and Taylor urge an escape from natural

scientific approaches and explore how language and

perception also put people in the world. Rorty disputes

how language contributes to knowledge and invites

39 Taylor, Ethics and Ontology, The Journal of Philosophy, op. cit., p. 307.

36

interpreters to show examples how philosophy has been

helpful in this regard. He then questions why people

should reconcile with the natural world. Reconciliation

with the natural world is likely to lead to animism (the

view that non-sentient interests have rights and values

that require respect and command obligations).

One way to explore nature’s intrinsic value is by

explaining the points they agree on. First they agree

that the methods of the natural sciences cannot be

transferred to the social sciences. This reflects an

observation emanating from Heidegger that meaning and

interpretation are shaped by people’s substantive values

(values important for a person’s identity that are

dependent on the various contexts in which people

operate). Second, agreement on substantive values and

contexts is acknowledge as essential to human existence.

This observation involves firstly understanding the

assertions and arguments presented in discourse require

recognition. That is, in order to understand moral and

political concepts one has to recognise the substantive

evaluative terms used. Third, interpreters and postmodern

37

ironists agree that language is central to understanding

the human condition. This assumption reflects a

commitment to Heidegger’s insight that language is a

means to reveal substantive, or evaluative terms that

shape moral or political concepts. They agree that it is

through language that different interpretations are

expressed and articulated – it will be recalled that

Heidegger famously stated that it is language which

speaks. Heidegger’s notorious phrase simply means that

interpretation and understanding emerge when people enter

into language.

They differ on the role language and perception play

in the formation of knowledge. Rorty challenges Dreyfus

and Taylor to prove that language is part of a process

that reveals the essence of an object, or thing. This is

similar to a charge levelled against environmental

ethicists in general: that is, how can the interests of

natural entities be given expression in law courts,

parliaments or other community institutions? Similarly,

Rorty asks how language can put us in touch with the

external world and therefore its intrinsic values.

38

Interpreters are challenged to explain how values

external to the human valuing subject can motivate an

individual agent. Dreyfus and Taylor are invited to show

examples where philosophy has been helpful in addressing

these issues and disputes.

Rorty urges philosophers give up on the search for

essential meaning and focus on the human predicament.

Research effort should just challenge the normalising

discourses of modernity because there is no truth, or

objectivity, independent of the rules of discourse

constructed by people. All that philosophy can do is to

continue the conversation of humanity and suggest some

interesting reminders. This argument does not lead to a

full rejection of environmental values in, and of,

itself. Rather, it means that no faculty exists for

humanity to glimpse the otherness of nature’s value.

There is nothing outside the text, nor is there anything

independent of our human agency. No deeper sense of

reality exists independent of our current practices.

Here, Rorty follows Donald Davidson’s work on

language and the world. Rorty argues that once the

39

distinctions between the natural and social sciences have

been demolished the best we can do is to suggest

interesting possibilities and reminders. That is, we must

recognise that justification relies on what we already

accept – the only way to justify a belief is through

another belief. For Davidson and Rorty there exist no

independent means to get outside of our beliefs and

language’.40 Intrinsic values do not exist therefore.

According to Rorty, there is no philosophical or

deep way of persuading someone that nature has intrinsic

value if they do not accept this. Rorty argues that

contingency and pragmatism are able only to suggest

interesting possibilities, or reminders. Rorty states:

[P]hilosophical reflection which does not attempt aradical criticism of contemporary culture, does notattempt to refound or remotivate it, but simplyassembles reminders and suggests some interestingpossibilities.41

This amounts to a wholesale rejection of Taylor’s radical

hermeneutic work on realism, interpretation, and critical

reflection leads to a form of pragmatism. Rorty claims

that language only expresses currently held beliefs:

knowledge emerges only when we have an agreed on set of40 Dreyfus/Taylor, ‘Anti-Epistemology’, op. cit., p. 55.41 Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others: Volume 2, op. cit., p. 6.

40

rules. According to Rorty, the rules of language

establish the truth content of an assertion or discourse:

once the distinctions between the natural and social

sciences have been proven to be incapable of providing

universal claims to truth then all subsequent evaluative

moves prove elusive. Philosophy can do no more than

assemble ideas and suggest possibilities. Rorty

concludes:

[T]here is no authority outside of convenience forhuman purposes that can be appealed to in order tolegitimize the use of a vocabulary. We have no dutiesto anything nonhuman.42

Rorty is therefore committed to a designative approach to

language where only beliefs can justify other beliefs.

Rorty’s locus classicus – Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature – argues

that the differences between the social and natural

sciences imply that no external values can command our

allegiance. Any realist epistemology must reflect a

particular interpretation, and this is because such

knowledge reflects a particular horizon of meaning. He

concludes:

42 Rorty, R., ‘Robert Brandom on Social Practices’, op. cit., p. 127and see Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language,Thought, A. Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper andRowe, 1971, p. 170.

41

Epistemological behaviourism (which might be calledsimply “pragmatism”, were this term not a bitoverladen)…is the claim that philosophy will have nomore to offer than common sense (supplemented bybiology, history, etc.) about knowledge and truth. Thequestion is not whether necessary and sufficientbehavioral conditions for “S knows that p” can beoffered; no one any longer dreams they can. Nor is thequestion whether such conditions can be offered for “Ssees that p”, or “It looks to S as if p”, or “S ishaving the thought that p”. To be behaviorist in thelarge sense in which Sellars and Quine are behaviouristis not to offer reductionist analyses, but to refuse toattempt a certain sort of explanation: the sort ofexplanation which not only interposes such a notion as“acquaintance with meanings” or “acquaintance withsensory appearances” between the impact of theenvironment on human beings and their reports about it,but uses such notions to explain the reliability ofsuch reports.43

Rorty continues and argues that behaviourism is designed

to explain ‘rationality and epistemic authority by

reference to what society lets us say, rather than the

latter by the former’. The essence of ‘epistemological

behaviorism,’ is ‘an attitude common to Dewey and

Wittgenstein’44 that notions such as ‘acquaintance with

meanings’ is the way to understand the world. This leads

back to empiricism and naturalism without offering a way

out of the mind and world dichotomy. Roty’s critique of

naturalism involves the claim that interpretation is

simply a reflection of a set of beliefs: on this view, it

43 Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, op. cit., p. 176.44 Ibid. p. 174.

42

is impossible for us to understand ultimate meaning or

our place in the universe. Ultimate meaning and nature’s

intrinsic value are beyond mortal comprehension and this

leads to his pragmatism. For Rorty, moral realists cannot

prove the existence of external values and all we can do

is to continue the conversation of humanity. But,

Dreyfus/Taylor argue that this forecloses debate and the

possibilities associated with the provision of better

interpretations.

For Rorty, all knowledge is mediated through the

mind and any attempt to understand intrinsic values ends

up in essentialism. On his view, essentialism is shaped

by a subjective and particular discourse that operates at

that moment in time. Accordingly, interpreters remain

enthralled by Cartesian dualisms offering little in the

way of philosophical insight. An obvious response is that

people actually do experience their being as perceptually

in touch with the universe (see section 2 above). This

response emanates from Heiddeger that people’s pre-

conceptual coping skills put them in touch with the world

as it-is-in-itself.

43

Of course, interpreters are not arguing that we are

in touch with the universe as it is in, and of, itself.

Rather, they argue that as engaged agents people are in

touch with the universe in their everyday lives. Rorty,

however, maintains that Taylor’s supersession argument45

is just another attempt to explain how things are-in-

themselves. For Rorty, their respective theories in

effect simply mirror other beliefs that are in vogue. In

sum, they are essentialists who cannot escape from the

epistemological cage of modernity. Rorty continues and

claims that he concurs with Aristotle and Dewey that the

moral life is simply a series of compromises.46 But,

environmental and social questions do not just revolve

around whether Aristotle or Dewey held such views –

rather, the question involves how people are perceptually

in touch with the world. This Aristotelian derived

understanding of realism connects with those theories of

language where a best account puts people in touch with

the way the universe is. Rorty however remains

45 Taylor, ‘Comment on Jurgen Habermas’ ‘From Kant to Hegel andBack Again’’, op. cit., p.161.

46 Rorty, R., ‘Charles Taylor on Truth’, in Rorty, R., Truth andProgress: Philosophical Papers Volume 3, Cambridge University Press:Cambridge, [1998] p. 93.

44

unconvinced that we can differentiate between the truth

about astrophysics, and how things are in themselves.

Rorty states:

[D]ebates about astrophysics, how to read Rilke, thedesirability of hypergoods, which movie to go to, andwhat kind of ice cream tastes best are, in thisrespect, on a par.47

Rorty urges complete withdrawal from ontological

commitments and in turn rejects arguments that nature is

a ‘source of the self’. All statements must in turn

reflect intuitions and beliefs: no essences, nor do

intrinsic values exist therefore we have no indubitable

access to the universe, or to intrinsic values.

Accordingly, agreements between people is all that is

possible (a position referred to as ‘deflationary

realism’ that means there is no philosophical way for

people to stand outside of their practices). This

argument misses the need for interpretation. Dreyfus

argues:

But if, as in Rorty’s projection, all objective truthwere settled, and there is no other area of seriousinvestigation of shared phenomena, abnormal discoursecould only be the expression of an individual’ssubjective attitude towards the facts. And once thismeta-truth was understood, there would be no place forhermeneutic efforts at commensuration. Indeed, therewould be no sense of translating one discourse into

47 Ibid.

45

another by trying to make them maximally agree on whatwas true and what false as proposed by Gadamer andQuine, since all discourses would already agree on theobjective facts. All that abnormal discourse wouldamount to would be the expression of private fantasies,and resulting pro and con attitudes towards the facts.And all that would be left in the place of Rorty’s kindof hermeneutics would be the Derridean notion of theplay of discourse about discourse.48

While Rorty searches for compromise in a world shaped by

irony, both Dreyfus and Taylor argue that this approach

to the world misses the power of ontological reflection

to access the world and its intrinsic value. Here, Taylor

responds:

[The] understanding which is relevant to the sciencesof man is something more than this implicit grasp onthings. It is related rather to the kind ofunderstanding we invoke in personal relations when wesay, for instance: ‘I find him hard to understand’; orat last I understand her’. To switch for a minute toanother language, it is the kind of understanding oneinvokes in French when one says ‘maintenant ons’entend’. We are talking here in these cases of whatyou could call human understanding, understanding whatmakes someone tick, or how he feels or acts as a humanbeing.49

For Taylor, once an action has been disclosed it reveals

itself, its purpose, as well as the practices in which it

operates. Irrespective of how an action is interpreted,

it reveals itself as significant for its ‘being in the

world’.50 This means that all discourse can be settled in48 Ibid.49 Taylor, ‘Understanding in the Human Sciences’, op. cit., p. 30.50 Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.

Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.

46

that all values are no more than a reflection of

subjective preferences – all that remains is relativism

and the play of difference. Here, Dreyfus argues that

Rorty’s search for ‘consensus’ and agreement’ while

ignoring the background values shaping language and

interpretation. Dreyfus notes:

They hope that by seeking a shared agreement on what isrelevant and by developing shared skills ofobservation, etc., the background practices of thesocial scientist can be taken for granted and ignoredthe way the background is ignored in natural science.51

Dreyfus’s ‘strong-hermeneutic’ involves embedded coping

that is characteristic of humanity’s perceptual skills

that can be confirmed and checked against reality.52

People are in touch with the world and its significant

values. Dreyfus and Taylor argue that Rorty ignores how

170.51 Dreyfus, H., ‘Holism and Hermeneutics’, Review of Metaphysics, 34: 1

[1980] pp. 16-17. More recently, Dreyfus, H. L. and Spinosa,C., ‘Coping with Things-in-themselves: A Practice-BasedPhenomenological Argument for Research’, Inquiry, 42:2, [1999] pp.49-78. See also Taylor, C., ‘Understanding in Human Sciences’,Review of Metaphysics, 34:1, [1980] pp. 25-38.

52 Dreyfus notes that Taylor’s most recent work can answer thebrain in the vat objection. In a possible world it might bethe case that we are not really embodied or coping agentsengaged with the world because our are given the impressionthat we are by an outside agent. No matter how unlikely thisscenario is, Dreyfus notes that it can be met by noting that itan agents perception that matters. Rorty therefore overlooksTaylor’s claim that this is a totally different way in whichhumans create knowledge, engage with the world, and understandits limits.

47

better interpretations build up our appreciation of the

world. Dreyfus underlines this problem in Rorty’s

strategy:

As long as someone feels that something has been leftout of the objective account he may be inclined topropose and defend an interpretation of what thatnontheoretical residue is and what it means for humanaction.

Thus, Rorty’s ironical stance finds itself immersed in

relativism and does not critically interpret the

practices that shape our lives.53

Rorty’s refusal to examine how the social sciences

provide different ways to understand humanity and nature

involves not only thoughts and ideas but skilful coping

and our everyday ability to live in the world. While it

might be the case that ‘science is in fact zeroing in on

(one aspect of) the physical universe as it is in itself’

it does not explore how our experiences influence our

actions.54 Taylor argues:

Once we see the emptiness of the myth of the Given, ourproblem is somehow to bring this free spontaneitytogether with constraint. In order to stop theoscillation between the need for grounding whichgenerates the myth of the Given, and the debunking ofthis myth, which leaves us with the need unfulfilled,

53 Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170.

54 Taylor, ‘(Anti-) Epistemology’, op. cit., p. 75.

48

“we need to recognize that experiences themselves arestates or occurrences that inextricably combinereceptivity and spontaneity”,55 we have to be able“speak of experience as openness to the lay-out ofreality. Experience enables the lay-out of realityitself to exert a rational influence on what a subjectthinks.”56

Our experiences themselves put us in touch with the world

– simply put we do not always utilise our thinking skills

when acting in the world. Our individual beliefs do not

simply mirror the in-itself-of-the-world, but involve our

active engagements in that world. Ultimately, Rorty moves

too fast and ignores our embedded grasp of reality as it

gives us access to the world. Rorty argues that while

Taylor sees a relationship with the world more primordial

than representation, there is in fact no necessary ‘break

between nonlinguistic and linguistic interactions for

organisms (or machines) with the world’.57 This is because

the only difference between such interactions is that

‘what we call interactions “linguistic” when we find it

helpful to correlate the marks and noises being produced

by other entities with the ones we ourselves make.’58

55 McDowell, Mind and World, op. cit., p. 58.56 Taylor in Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’, op. cit.,

p. 58.57 See Rorty, Truth and Progress, op. cit. p. 96.58 See Rorty, Truth and Progress, op. cit. p. 96. (also see

Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.

49

However Rorty, who follows Donald Davidson on this

point, does not explore how the sciences of man have

different ways to reveal meaning. There is more to the

human condition than simply satisfying economic appetite

and new insights involve interactions with the world.

First, Taylor argues that the philosophical task should

be to reflect on existing social and environmental

practices because there are other ways whereby an ethic

based on realism can be used to engage with the world.

When interpreters discuss the concept of the ‘world’ they

are reflecting on the space Heidegger discussed when he

explained the role of language in opening up new visions.

Language provides a space where things are revealed and

this has implications for environmental ethics. Language

is a means through which people express the values of

significance in their lives. Gadamer explains:

[L]anguage in which something comes to speak is not apossession at the disposal of one or the other of theinterlocutors. Every conversation presupposes a commonlanguage, or better, creates a common language.Something is placed in the center, as the Greeks say,which the partners in dialogue both share, andconcerning which they can exchange ideas with oneanother. Hence reaching an understanding on thesubject matter of a conversation necessarily means thata common language must be first worked out in the

Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170).

50

conversation. This is not an external matter ofsimply adjusting our tools; nor is it even right to saythat the partners adapt themselves to one another but,rather, in a successful conversation they both comeunder the influence of the truth of the object and arethus bound to one another in a new community. To reachan understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matterof putting oneself forward and successfully assertingone’s own point of view, but being transformed into acommunion in which we do not remain what we were.59

This passage is motivated by a philosophical idealism

often misconstrued by postmodern ironists, such as Rorty,

as imposing commonalities on people. For postmodernists,

language is a vehicle used by cunning political actors

and its seductive powers must be resisted. Language, on a

postmodern view, does not disclose anything with

indubitable certainty.60 Interpreters respond and argue

that the power of language, however, provides a space

through which people arrive at agreements and

understanding (see section 3 of this essay).

The space opened up by language connects with the

values revealed in skilful coping (perception). The

59 Gadamer, H.G., Truth and Method, fifth reproduction, (trans GarrettBarden and John Cummings), Sheed and Ward Ltd: London, [1975]pp. 378-379.

60 Taylor, C., Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, (ed.),Gutmann, A., Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press,1992; Taylor, C., Varieties of Religion Today, Harvard, HarvardUniversity Press, 2002; Taylor, C., ‘Understanding the Other: AGadamerian View On Conceptual Schemes’, in J. Malpas, U.Arnswald, and Jens Kertshcer, Gadamer’s Century: Essays in Honor of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2002, p. 290.

51

relevance of this thinking for understanding the world

concerns how disclosing beings are put in relations with

the world. It is not simply a matter of asserting the

existence of intrinsic values, but involves the revealing

power of a being capable of reflective thought. On

Taylor’s view, truth is not present as a statement, but

as an experience of an event, more precisely as the

experience of strife. The beings are susceptible to being

questioned in respect of their truth precisely because

they stand on their own. As Ross argues:

They stand on their own thanks to a preserving ‘agent’that stands as their ‘ground’, what Heidegger calls the‘earth’. And it is this relation between world andearth, understood as a conflict between the appearingand opening of beings (world) and withdrawing andsheltering of beings (earth), that sets Heidegger onthe path of thinking what he terms the ‘doubleconcealing’ of truth.

The question that follows is whether language is simply a

series of ‘marks and noises’ we use to communicate, or

whether it discloses entities and objects uniquely.

Taylor refers us to Heidegger’s famous example of the

disclosure of the purpose of a hammer:

The hammer possessed in fore-having is ready-to-hand asa tool. When this becomes an object of an assertion,with the very construction of the assertion a shiftoccurs in the fore-having. The ready-to-hand tendencyto think “with what?” becomes the “about what?” of areferential assertion. The view of the object in

52

preunderstanding is now focused on what is merely “onhand” in the ready-to-hand…And readiness-to-hand assuch passes into concealment.61

Here disclosing the hammer as an object is at the expense

of concealing its existence as a tool. In a similar

manner to that of the hammer’s purpose, it is possible

that disclosing the intrinsic value of nature reveals the

otherness of nature which cannot be reduced to apparatus

or technique. According to Taylor’s interpretation it is

only in the act of hammering that the object becomes the

entity we refer to as a tool – a hammer. Prior to this

act, our understanding of it is limited to its appearance

as a shape rather than as an object within a context

which gives the shape a form, or meaning. These examples

illustrate important distinctions between saying that all

knowledge is shaped by the context in which it arises to

us and is therefore subject-related. While on Taylor’s

interpretation our pre-understandings come to light

through our interpretations of them. For Rorty the hammer

has meaning as a tool in a context of use which passes

61 As quoted in Palmer, E., Hermeneutics, Interpretation Theory inSchleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, Evanston, NorthwesternUniversity Press, [1969] pp. 137-138. (Palmer here citesHeidegger, M., Sein und Zeit, pp. 157-158).

53

through a series of interpretations that are subject-

related. In contrast, Taylor appeals to the universal

characteristic of the hermeneutic method which maintains

that irrespective of our interpretations, once the act of

‘hammering’ is performed it discloses its true existence

per se. As Taylor explains:

We aren’t deriving this from the nature of “rationalanimal”. It is, on the contrary, purely derived fromthe way of being of the clearing, by being attentive tothe way that language opens up a clearing. When we canbring this undistortedly to light, we see that it isnot something we accomplish. It is not an artefact ofours, our “Geachte”.62

For Taylor, there exists an indubitable sense in which

things can be disclosed thereby revealing their authentic

characteristics. In a similar way, the intrinsic value of

nature can be revealed as imposing constraints on us;

that is, the otherness of nature is not only part of us

but is expressed through us. It is for these reasons that

Taylor has argued that nature makes demands on us – it

requires a different way of orienting and thinking about

the world. Rorty continues to criticise this argument:

Realism becomes interesting only when we supplementplain speech and common sense with the “in itself”versus “to us” distinction. Taylor thinks that thislatter distinction cannot simply be walked away frombut must be dealt with. I think neither he nor anyone

62 Taylor, ‘Heidegger, Language and Ecology’, op. cit., p. 263.

54

else has explained why we cannot just walk away fromit. Such an explanation would have to tell us morethan we have ever before been told about what gooddistinction is supposed to do. I keep hoping thatTaylor, as a fervent an anti-Cartesian as I, will joinwith me in abandoning it.63

Dreyfus argues that Taylor’s work on realism does do what

Rorty recommends. Taylor noted that it is important to

understand the distinction between ‘in-itself’ and ‘for

us’ if we are to correctly understand our place in the

world. It will be remembered that this was the point

about Johnny getting it right (Section 2 above) – when

looking at the mirror Johnny was about getting it ‘right’

– there may be many possible languages that can provide

and disclose different aspects of reality. According to

Taylor, Rorty narrows the role of interpretation and

disclosure and thus the pragmatic turn leaves important

identity issues untouched. Consequentially, we enthralled

in another derivative of the Cartesian world whereby we

continue to fail to engage adequately with the natural

world. Rorty forecloses further debate and interpretation

and ignores direct coping, interpretation and the best-

account argument which put us in touch with the world.64

63 Ibid., pp. 93-94.64 It will be recalled that Taylor defined supersession arguments

as framed by ontological parameters; this is the process of

55

Rorty’s postmodern deflationary realism is limited

by two key problems. First, by going down the pragmatic

road Rorty does not offer a way to critically engage the

institutions of modernity, which require better

interpretations that build up richer pictures with the

world. Second, Rorty’s self-proclaimed naturalism and

anti-reductionism does not explain how the conditions for

agreement might be brought into play through language and

discourse. On this point, Taylor returns to his work on

the differences between the natural and social sciences

where science might be zeroing in on one aspect of

reality such that it considers ‘what takes on reality are

liveable’.65

Furthermore, Rorty’s interpretation of language can

lead to a situation where one becomes ‘incapable of

saying important things, or forced to banalise about

important things’.66 But, the task of philosophy is to

assist in understanding the world in which we live. Last,

moving from confusion to clarity through a process which beginsby recognising the different ways different people visualisethe world.

65 Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’, op. cit., p. 69.66 Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.

Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170.

56

hermeneutics offers a method of interpretation through

which both sides of a dispute can be understood. Taylor

argues that:

…those writers are correct who maintain that scientificknowledge has to do with our learning to grasp andidentify the kinds of things there are and their causalaction. The ‘realist’ view, defended by writers likeHarré, is that we explain phenomena by showing them toflow from the operation of the kinds of thing thatthere are, where our conception of such kinds cannot bereductively eliminated in favor of some type ofconcept.67

Through philosophical enquiry, therefore, improved

interpretations the dominant philosophical landscape such

that ‘the clearing and its ontic placing’ which has the

base to inform a deeper ecological politics (Section I

above).68

Dreyfus continues and argues that from Heidegger an

appreciation can be gained that there are many different

means to interpret a particular phenomenon. Utilising the

resources of interpretation it is possible to arrive at

an authentic appreciation. Heidegger put it in the

following way:

The statements of physics are correct. By means ofthem, science represents something real, by which it isobjectively controlled. But…science always encounters

67 Taylor, ‘Understanding in the Human Sciences’, op. cit., p. 27.68 Taylor, ‘Heidegger, Language and Ecology’, op. cit., p. 262.

57

only what its kind of representation has admittedbeforehand as an object possible for science.69

On this view, it is possible to reveal different facets

of reality using different techniques and methods. No

unique language exists that correctly describes reality

as it is; however, there may be many languages each

‘which correctly describe a different aspect of

reality.’70 Through discursive frameworks rational debate

informed by principles of equal facilitation can relate

the particular with the universal to reveal and explore

any necessary conditions of being-in-the-world.

Conclusion: An Interpretative and Environmentally Aware

Civil Society

Interpreters offer a political strategy to safeguard the

natural environment and future generations. This is to be

achieved through face-to-face community relationships in

a democratic structure that is attentive to the otherness

of nature. A concern for such values and the future of

the world, however, is something that is not necessarily69 Heidegger, M., ‘The Thing’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, A.

Hofstader (translator), New York, NY, Harper and Rowe, 1971, p.170 (found in Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti)- Epistemology’, op.cit., p.

70 Dreyfus, ‘Taylor’s (Anti-) Epistemology’, op. cit., p. 79.

58

self-evident within procedural liberal and postmodern

discourse. It was argued that a danger in postmodern

positions involved what it means to converse with the

natural realm?

A new, interpretative inspired age, might be one

where people relate to, and cope with, the turbulent

environment in which they live and act. Accordingly,

liberal and postmodern meta-ethics beg the ontological

features of human identity associated as they are with

political realism. Interpreters suggest that there is a

connection between intrinsic value in the world and how

external reasons might put people in touch with the

natural world. Postmodern contingency cuts us off from

our expressive sources of the self precisely when

interpretation is most needed. From this it follows that

it is possible that our coping skills articulate and

orient us to the world where language is the conduit

through which the otherness of nature is articulated;

that is, replacing sustainability with steady-state

social arrangements that challenge capitalism and

technological modernity. In this hermeneutic theory can

59

be connected with the environmental precautionary

principle which states that ‘where there are threats of

serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific

certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing

cost-effective measures to prevent environmental

damage.’71

These arguments reflected two interlocking premises.

First, was an argument outlining why secular societies

have had difficulty recognising the otherness of the

natural world.72 Second, moral realism was seen to put

people directly in touch with the world. When combined a

political vision that emphasised common endeavours as a

reflection of humanity as the voice of nature. It was

argued that those critics who focussed on the notion of a

voice of nature invested too much in analysing his focus

on community without attention to work on what is

significance. A focus on the criterion of significance is

71 Brown, D. A., ‘The Role of Law in Sustainable Development andEnvironmental Protection Decision making’, in Lemons, J. andBrown, D. A. (eds.), Sustainable Development: Science, Ethics and PublicPolicy, Kluwer Academic Press: Dordrecht, [1995] p. 67.

72 Taylor, A Secular Age, op. cit., part I.

60

not at the expense of individual rights73 because the

purpose is about understanding our place in the world.

The first issue in the paper asked how we arrived at

the present position. The second involved images of

commonality, community, interpretation and how to shape a

civil society. Taylor is firmly of the view that a civil

society is not built on economic and regulatory systems

alone. Accordingly, argues that a civil and

environmentally aware community is more than being from

free associations, not under the tutelage of state power.

In a stronger and secondary sene, civil society exists

only where society as a whole can structure itself and

co-ordinate its actions through such associations that

are free of state tutelage. In this regard an

environmentally aware society acts as an alternative or

supplement to the second sense, we can speak of civil

society wherever the ensemble of associations can

significantly determine or inflect the course of state

policy.74

73 Taylor, C. ‘What is Human Agency’, in T. Mischel (ed.), The Self:Psychological and Philosophical Issues, (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress), 1977, pp. 103-135.

74 Taylor, C. ‘Modes of Civil Society’, Public Culture Vol, 3, No.1,1990, p. 98.

61

Furthermore, the criticisms levelled by Marks’ and

Rorty’s are not necessarily a problem in Taylor’s

argument because discourse using these nuanced

expressions leads to new ideas and concepts that are

focussed on justice.75 Critics do not develop the

interpretative two-stage process where concepts and ideas

concerning justice must be considered in the light of the

place and context to which they belong.76 The first stage

involved entering into dialogue and understanding the

perspective of other interlocutors. The second stage

worked out political principles of justice that allow

interlocutors to live together.

It is therefore another category error to focus on

community without consideration of all elements in the

interpretative strategy. In sum, Baudrillard, Marks and

Rorty ignored not only the interpretative dimensions, but

also the optimistic use of practical reasoning that75 Taylor, ‘Language and Society’, op. cit., pp. 23–36.76 See Taylor, ‘Ethics and Ontology’, op. cit., pp. 305–310. In this

article Taylor explores John McDowell’s work with whom heconcurs in the supposition that there exists a need to movebeyond the restrictive phenomenology of ‘bald naturalism’.Taylor states, ‘McDowell seems to have done the trick, and tohave reconciled the deliverances of phenomenology (we reallydiscern ethical differences in human life, and these have to beunderstood as involving incommensurable, higher values), andthe basic concerns of a naturalistic ontology, which cannotallow such values into the furniture of the universe’ (p. 315).

62

explores the role perception and moral thinking play in

being a full person. Taken together perception and the

power of reason are the means through which humanity

comes in touch with the world.