1. American Conservation Philosophy and its Critique
01_02.ppt
American Conservation Philosophy and its Critique
Professor Bob Sandmeyer

2. Introductions Professor Bob Sandmeyer
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Environmental and Sustainability Studies Faculty
Specialization I:
Edmund Husserl
Phenomenological Movement
19th & 20th Century German Philosophy
Specialization II:
Philosophy of Ecology
Environmental Philosophy
Sustainability Studies

3. Introductions Professor Bob Sandmeyer
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Environmental and Sustainability Studies Faculty
Specialization I:
Edmund Husserl
Phenomenological Movement
19th & 20th Century German Philosophy
Specialization II:
Philosophy of Ecology
Environmental Philosophy
Sustainability Studies

4. Introductions Professor Sandmeyer Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Environmental and Sustainability Studies Faculty
Contact Information
WeChat ID: bobsand

5. Introductions You?? Name (you would like to be called)
Interest in conservation philosophy?

6. Course Web Page https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/ Syllabus Handouts
Reading Questions
Federal Lands Systems
Handouts
Important Links

7. Course Syllabus https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/ Syllabus
Unit One: Historical Background
Unit Two: Conservation Philosophies
Unit Three: US Public Lands Agencies & Critical Responses

8. Course Syllabus https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/ Syllabus
Unit One: Historical Background
Unit Two: Conservation Philosophies
Unit Three: US Public Lands Agencies & Critical Responses
Reading Assignments
Two readings per day
Two reading questions per assignment

9. Course Syllabus https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/ In-class Presentations
See Handouts page

10. Course Syllabus https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/ End of Unit Examinations
One exam per unit = 3 exams
“Take Home”
See Handouts page
Questions posted on Thursday
Answers ed to me by Friday at noon (12:00pm)

11. Unit One: Historical Background
Modern Philosophy & the Rise of Reason
Advent of rational control of nature and of mankind
The modern scientific worldview: representatives
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) – Italian natural philosopher
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) – British politician and natural philosopher
René Descartes ( ) – French mathematician and philosopher
John Locke ( ) – British political philosopher
Isaac Newton (1642 –1727) – British natural philosopher

12. Unit One: Historical Background
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Important Writings
Novum Organum (1620) - New Logic
Instauratio Magna (The Great Instauration) – The Great Renewal
unpublished during his lifetime
Statement of Anthropocentric Worldview
"the empire of man over things is founded on the arts and sciences alone, for nature is only to be commanded by obeying her"
Anthropocentrism

13. Unit One: Historical Background
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Anthropocentric metaphysical worldview
The earth made for mankind
Metaphysics: theory of being or reality
Materialist theory of reality
complete reduction of all events to matter and motion

14. Unit One: Historical Background
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Epistemology (theory of knowledge)
demand for a “new organon” or new tool of human knowledge
strictly empirical method of experimentation
"the real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches”
He mentions three such discoveries that have shaped the human condition universally
Printing (in literature)
Gunpowder (in warfare)
The Compass (in navigation)
shows civilized man to be a god to men

15. Unit One: Historical Background
John Locke ( )
Important Writings
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
“Of Property” reading
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
Resource Conception of Nature
Problem of the Value in/of Nature

16. Unit One: Historical Background
John Locke ( )
Important Writings
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
“Of Property” reading
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
Resource Conception of Nature
Problem of the Value in/of Nature

17. Unit One: Historical Background
John Locke ( )
Labor Theory of Value
“It is labor, then, which put the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth anything…"
"every man has property in his own person" (1/9)
Concept of private domain
nature + something is his own
Labor removes things from the original common state in nature

18. Unit One: Historical Background
John Locke ( )
9/10ths rule
• "of the products useful to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labor (6/9)
Sustainability thesis
"every man should have as much as he could make use of" (4)
Spoilage thesis
Invention of money
Alters the sustainability thesis

19. Unit One: Historical Background
René Descartes ( )
Important Writings
Discourse on the Method (1637)
Principles of Philosophy (1641)
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
Le Monde (The World)­ – published posthumously

20. Unit One: Historical Background
René Descartes ( )
Concept of Substance
Univocal concept
God
Equivocal concept
Created Substances
Mind (res cogitans)
Matter (res extensa)

21. Unit One: Historical Background
René Descartes ( )
Universal Mechanistic Theory of the Physical World
Dualist metaphysics
cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)
Certainty of mind
Fundamental Problem
soul is of a nature which has no relation to extension

22. Unit One: Historical Background
René Descartes ( )
Beast – Machine Theory
Animals like soulless moving machines, i.e., automata
Lacking in mind
Brutes have not less reason than man, they have none at all
two certain tests animals are not rational
Language
Signifies thought
Creative response to problems
Reason – a universal tool or instrument
I do not deny the life of any animal, making it consist solely in the warmth of the heart."