Thinking Like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy After the End of Nature

295 Pages·2015·6.64 MB·English

by  Steven Vogel

Thinking like a Mall

Thinking like a Mall
Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature
Steven Vogel
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2015 Steven Vogel
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vogel, Steven, 1954–
Thinking like a mall : environmental philosophy after the end of nature / Steven Vogel.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-02910-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Environmental sciences—Philosophy. 2. Philosophy of nature. I. Title.
GE40.V64
363.7001—dc23
2014039752

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my parents

Contents
Preface ix
1 Against Nature 1
2 The Social Construction of Nature 33
3 Alienation, Nature, and the Environment 65
4 The Nature of Artifacts 95
5 Thinking like a Mall 129
6 The Silence of Nature 167
7 Democracy and the Commons 199
Notes 239
Bibliography 265
Index 275

Preface
This book has been a long time in the writing, and parts of it (or first
drafts of parts of it) have been published as independent articles along the
way. These include:
“Alienation and the Commons,” in Ethical Adaptation to Climate
Change: Human Virtues of the Future, ed. Allen Thompson and Jeremy
Bendik-Keymer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012);
“Why ‘Nature’ Has No Place in Environmental Philosophy,” in The Ideal
of Nature: Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment, ed. Greg-
ory E. Kaebnick (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011);
“On Nature and Alienation,” in Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School
and Contemporary Environmental Crises, ed. Andrew Biro (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2011);
“The Silence of Nature,” Environmental Values 15, no. 2 (May 2006);
“The Nature of Artifacts,” Environmental Ethics 25, no. 2 (2003);
“Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature,” Environmental
Ethics 24, no. 1 (2002);
“Nature as Origin and Difference: On Environmental Philosophy and
Continental Thought,” Philosophy Today 42, suppl. (1999);
“Marx and Alienation from Nature,” Social Theory and Practice 14, no.
3 (1988).
Some of the original work here was done during a semester-long Spe-
cial Research Fellowship at the Humanities Research Center “Menneske
og Natur” at Odense University in Denmark, and I am thankful for that
support. I am also grateful to Robert Chapman and to Pace University’s
Department of Philosophy for providing me with office space and other
assistance during part of the writing of this book. Thanks are also due