environmental aesthetics (stanford encyclopedia of philosophy)

9/6/2015 Environmental Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/environmentalaesthetics/ 1/20

Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyEnvironmental AestheticsFirst published Mon Jan 29, 2007; substantive revision Mon Jan26, 2015

Environmental aesthetics is a relatively new subfield ofphilosophical aesthetics. It arose within analytic aesthetics in thelast third of the twentieth century. Prior to its emergence, aestheticswithin the analytic tradition was largely concerned with philosophyof art. Environmental aesthetics originated as a reaction to thisemphasis, pursuing instead the investigation of the aestheticappreciation of natural environments. Since its early stages, thescope of environmental aesthetics has broadened to include not

simply natural environments but also human and humaninfluenced ones. At the same time, the disciplinehas also come to include the examination of that which falls within such environments, giving rise towhat is called the aesthetics of everyday life. This area involves the aesthetics of not only more commonobjects and environments, but also a range of everyday activities. Thus, early in the twentyfirst century,environmental aesthetics embraces the study of the aesthetic significance of almost everything other thanart.

1. History1.1 Eighteenth Century Aesthetics of Nature1.2 Nineteenth Century Aesthetics of Nature

2. Twentieth Century Developments2.1 The Neglect of the Aesthetics of Nature2.2 The Emergence of Environmental Aesthetics

3. Basic Positions in Environmental Aesthetics3.1 Cognitive Views3.2 Noncognitive Views

4. Recent Developments in Environmental Aesthetics4.1 The Aesthetics of Human Environments and Everyday Life4.2 Environmental Aesthetics and Environmentalism

BibliographyAcademic ToolsOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries

1. History

Although environmental aesthetics has developed as a subfield of Western philosophical aesthetics onlyin the last forty years, it has historical roots in eighteenth and nineteenth century European and NorthAmerican aesthetics. In these centuries, there were important advances in the aesthetics of nature,including the emergence of the concept of disinterestedness together with those of the sublime and thepicturesque, as well as the introduction of the idea of positive aesthetics. These notions continue to play a

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role in contemporary work in environmental aesthetics, especially in the context of its relationship toenvironmentalism.

1.1 Eighteenth Century Aesthetics of Nature

In the West, the first major philosophical developments in the aesthetics of nature occurred in theeighteenth century. During that century, the founders of modern aesthetics not only began to take natureas a paradigmatic object of aesthetic experience, they also developed the concept of disinterestedness asthe mark of such experience. Over the course of the century, this concept was elaborated by variousthinkers, who employed it to purge from aesthetic appreciation an everincreasing range of interests andassociations. According to one standard account (Stolnitz 1961), the concept originated with the thirdEarl of Shaftesbury, who introduced it as a way of characterizing the notion of the aesthetic, wasembellished by Francis Hutcheson, who expanded it so as to exclude from aesthetic experience notsimply personal and utilitarian interests, but also associations of a more general nature, and was furtherdeveloped by Archibald Alison, who took it to refer to a particular state of mind. The concept was givenits classic formulation in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, in which nature was taken as anexemplary object of aesthetic experience. Kant argued that natural beauty was superior to that of art andthat it complemented the best habits of mind. It is no accident that the development of the concept ofdisinterestedness and the acceptance of nature as an ideal object of aesthetic appreciation went hand inhand. The clarification of the notion of the aesthetic in terms of the concept of disinterestednessdisassociated the aesthetic appreciation of nature from the appreciator's particular personal, religious,economic, or utilitarian interests, any of which could impede aesthetic experience.

The theory of disinterestedness also provided groundwork for understanding the aesthetic dimensions ofnature in terms of three distinct conceptualizations. The first involved the idea of the beautiful, whichreadily applies to tamed and cultivated European gardens and landscapes. The second centered on theidea of the sublime. In the experience of the sublime, the more threatening and terrifying of nature'smanifestations, such as mountains and wilderness, when viewed with disinterestedness, can beaesthetically appreciated, rather than simply feared or despised. These two notions were importantlyelaborated by Edmund Burke and Kant. However, concerning the appreciation of nature, a third conceptwas to become more significant than that of either the beautiful or the sublime: the notion of thepicturesque. Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, there were three clearly distinct ideas eachfocusing on different aspects of nature's diverse and often contrasting moods. One historian of thepicturesque tradition (Conron 2000) argues that in “eighteenthcentury English theory, the boundariesbetween aesthetic categories are relatively clear and stable”. The differences can be summarized asfollows: objects experienced as beautiful tend to be small and smooth, but subtly varied, delicate, and“fair” in color, while those experienced as sublime, by contrast, are powerful, vast, intense, terrifying,and “definitionless”. Picturesque items are typically in the middle ground between those experienced aseither sublime or beautiful, being complex and eccentric, varied and irregular, rich and forceful, andvibrant with energy.

It is not surprising that of these three notions, the idea of the picturesque, rather that of the beautiful orthe sublime, achieved the greatest prominence concerning the aesthetic experience of nature. Not onlydoes it occupy the extensive middle ground of the complex, irregular, forceful, and vibrant, all of whichabound in the natural world, it also reinforced various longstanding connections between the aestheticappreciation of nature and the treatment of nature in art. The term “picturesque” literally means “picturelike” and the theory of the picturesque advocates aesthetic appreciation in which the natural world isexperienced as if divided into artlike scenes, which ideally resemble works of arts, especially landscapepainting, in both subject matter and composition. Thus, since the concept of disinterestedness mandatedappreciation of nature stripped of the appreciator's own personal interests and associations, it helped to



clear the ground for experience of nature governed by the theory of the picturesque, by which theappreciator is encouraged to see nature in terms of a new set of artistic images and associations. In thisway the idea of the picturesque relates to earlier conceptions of the natural world as comprised of whatwere called “works of nature”, which, although considered in themselves to be proper and importantobjects of aesthetic experience, were thought to be even more appealing when they resembled works ofart. The idea also resonates with other artistic traditions, such as that of viewing art as the mirror ofnature. The theory of the picturesque received its fullest treatment in the late eighteenth century when itwas popularized in the writings of William Gilpin, Uvedale Price, and Richard Payne Knight. At thattime, it provided an aesthetic ideal for English tourists, who pursued picturesque scenery in the LakeDistrict, the Scottish Highlands, and the Alps.

1.2 Nineteenth Century Aesthetics of Nature

Following its articulation in the eighteenth century, the idea of the picturesque remained a dominantinfluence on popular aesthetic experience of nature throughout the entire nineteenth and well into thetwentieth century. Indeed, it is still an important component of the kind of aesthetic experiencecommonly associated with ordinary tourism—that which involves seeing and appreciating the naturalworld as it is represented in the depictions found in travel brochures, calendar photos, and picturepostcards. However, while the idea of the picturesque continued to guide popular aesthetic appreciationof nature, the philosophical study of the aesthetics of nature, after flowering in the eighteenth century,went into decline. Many of the main themes, such as the concept of the sublime, the notion ofdisinterestedness, and the theoretical centrality of nature in philosophical aesthetics, culminated withKant, who gave some of these ideas such exhaustive treatment that a kind of philosophical closure wasseemingly achieved. Following Kant, a new world order was initiated by Hegel. In Hegel's philosophy,art was the highest expression of “Absolute Spirit”, and it, rather than nature, was destined to become thefavored subject of philosophical aesthetics. Thus, in the nineteenth century, both on the continent and inthe United Kingdom, relatively few philosophers and only a scattering of thinkers of the RomanticMovement seriously pursued the theoretical study of the aesthetics of nature. There was no philosophicalwork comparable to that of the preceding century.

However, while the philosophical study of the aesthetics of nature languished in Europe, a new way ofunderstanding the aesthetic appreciation of the natural world was developing in North America. Thisconception of nature appreciation had roots in the American tradition of nature writing, as exemplified inthe essays of Henry David Thoreau. It was also inspired by the idea of the picturesque and, to a lesserextent, that of the sublime, especially in its artistic manifestations, such as the paintings of Thomas Coleand Frederic Church. However, as nature writing became its more dominant form of expression, theconception was increasingly shaped by developments in the natural sciences. In the middle of thenineteenth century, it was influenced by the geographical work of George Perkins Marsh (1865), whoargued that humanity was increasingly causing the destruction of the beauty of nature. The idea wasforcefully presented toward the end of the century in the work of American naturalist John Muir, whowas steeped in natural history. Muir explicitly distinguished this kind of understanding of aestheticappreciation from that governed by the idea of the picturesque. In a wellknown essay, “A Near View ofthe High Sierra” (1894), two of Muir's artist companions, who focus on mountain scenery, exemplifyaesthetic experience of nature as guided by the idea of the picturesque. This differs from Muir's ownaesthetic experience, which involved an interest in and appreciation of the mountain environmentsomewhat more akin to that of a geologist. This way of experiencing nature eventually brought Muir tosee the whole of the natural environment and especially wild nature as aesthetically beautiful and to findugliness primarily where nature was subject to human intrusion. The range of things that he regarded asaesthetically appreciable seemed to encompass the entire natural world, from creatures consideredhideous in his day, such as snakes and alligators, to natural disasters thought to ruin the environment,



such as floods and earthquakes. The kind of nature appreciation practiced by Muir has become associatedwith the contemporary point of view called “positive aesthetics” (Carlson 1984). Insofar as suchappreciation eschews humanity's marks on the natural environment, it is somewhat the converse ofaesthetic appreciation influenced by the idea of the picturesque, which finds interest and delight inevidence of human presence.

2. Twentieth Century Developments

Western philosophical study of the aesthetics of the natural world reached a low point in the middle ofthe twentieth century, with the focus of analytic aesthetics almost exclusively on philosophy of art. At thesame time, the view that aesthetic appreciation of nature is parasitic upon that of art and even the ideathat it is not in fact aesthetic appreciation at all were defended by some thinkers. However, in the lastthird of the century, there was a reaction to the neglect of the natural world by the discipline of aesthetics,which initiated a revival of the aesthetic investigation of nature and led to the emergence ofenvironmental aesthetics.

2.1 The Neglect of the Aesthetics of Nature

In the first half of the twentieth century, AngloAmerican philosophy largely ignored the aesthetics ofnature. However, there were some noteworthy exceptions. For example, in North America, GeorgeSantayana investigated the topic as well as the concept of nature itself. Somewhat later, John Deweycontributed to the understanding of the aesthetic experience of both nature and everyday life, and CurtDucasse discussed the beauty of nature as well as that of the human form. In England, R. G. Collingwoodworked on both the philosophy of art and the idea of nature, but the two topics did not importantly cometogether in his thought. However, other than a few such individuals, as far as aesthetics was pursued,there was little serious consideration of the aesthetics of nature. On the contrary, the discipline wasdominated by an interest in art. By the midtwentieth century, within analytic philosophy, the principalphilosophical school in the Englishspeaking world at that time, philosophical aesthetics was virtuallyequated with philosophy of art. The leading aesthetics textbook of the period was subtitled Problems inthe Philosophy of Criticism and opened with the assertion: “There would be no problems of aesthetics, inthe sense in which I propose to mark out this field of study, if no one ever talked about works of art”(Beardsley 1958). The comment was meant to emphasize the importance of the analysis of language, butit also reveals the artdominated construal of aesthetics of that time. Moreover, if and when the aestheticappreciation of nature was discussed, it was treated, by comparison with that of art, as a messy,subjective business of less philosophical interest. Some of the major aestheticians of the second half ofthe century argued that aesthetic judgments beyond what became known as the “artworld” must remainrelative to conditions of observation and unfettered by the kind of constraints that govern the appreciationof art (Walton 1970, Dickie 1974).

The domination of analytic aesthetics by an interest in art had two ramifications. On the one hand, ithelped to motivate a controversial philosophical position that denied the possibility of any aestheticexperience of nature whatsoever. The position held that aesthetic appreciation necessarily involvesaesthetic judgments, which entail judging the object of appreciation as the achievement of a designingintellect. However, since nature is not the product of a designing intellect, its appreciation is not aesthetic(Mannison 1980). In the past, nature appreciation was deemed aesthetic because of the assumption thatnature is the work of a designing creator, but this assumption is simply false or at least inadequate forgrounding an aesthetics of nature. On the other hand, the artdominated construal of aesthetics also gavesupport to approaches that stand within the many different historical traditions that conceptualize thenatural world as essentially artlike—for example, as a set of the “works of nature”, or as the“handiwork” of a creator, or as picturesque scenery. For example, what might be called a landscape



model of nature appreciation, which stems directly from the tradition of the picturesque, proposes that weshould aesthetically experience nature as we appreciate landscape paintings. This requires seeing it tosome extent as if it were a series of twodimensional scenes and focusing either on formal aestheticqualities or on artistic qualities dependent upon the kind of romantic images associated with the idea ofthe picturesque. Such artoriented models of the aesthetic appreciation of nature, in addition to beingsupported by powerful and longstanding traditions of thought (Biese 1905, Nicolson 1959), are defendedin some recent work in environmental aesthetics (Stecker 1997, Crawford 2004, Leddy 2005a). Likewise,the defense of formal aesthetic appreciation of nature has recently been renewed (Zangwill 2001 2013),although not without debate (Parsons 2004, Parsons and Carlson 2004, Moore 2006).

2.2 The Emergence of Environmental Aesthetics

In the last third of the twentieth century, a renewed interest in the aesthetics of nature emerged. Thisrevival was the result of several different factors. In part, it was a response to the growing public concernabout the apparent degeneration of the environment, aesthetic and otherwise. It was also the result of theacademic world becoming aware of the significance of the environmental movement—at the level ofboth theoretical discussion and practical action. It is noteworthy that the emergence of the philosophicalstudy of environmental ethics also dates from this time. Some of the earlier work in environmentalaesthetics focused on empirical research conducted in response to public apprehension about the aestheticstate of the environment. Critics argued that the landscape assessment and planning techniques used inenvironmental management were inadequate in stressing mainly formal properties, while overlookingexpressive and other kinds of aesthetic qualities (Sagoff 1974, Carlson 1976). Empirical approaches werealso faulted as fixated on “scenic beauty” and overly influenced by ideas such as that of the picturesque(Carlson 1977). In general, the area was thought beset by theoretical problems (Sparshott 1972), and theempirical research in particular was said to lack an adequate conceptual framework, often beingconducted in what one critic called a “theoretical vacuum” (Appleton 1975b). Attempts to fill thisvacuum prompted the idea of sociobiological underpinnings for the aesthetic appreciation of nature, suchas “prospectrefuge theory” (Appleton 1975a 1982), as well as other evolutionrelated accounts (Oriansand Heerwagen 1986 1992). In addition, the concerns of this period motivated the development of avariety of theoretical models of aesthetic response grounded in, for example, developmental andenvironmental psychology (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989, Bourassa 1991). There are overviews (Zube 1984,CatsBaril and Gibson 1986, Daniel 2001) and collections (Saarinen et al 1984, Nasar 1988, Sheppardand Harshaw 2001) of this and related kinds of research, as well as more recent studies that, althoughthey have an essentially empirical orientation, are of considerable theoretical interest (Porteous 1996,Bell 1999, Parsons and Daniel 2002, Gobster et al 2007, Hill and Daniel 2008, Gobster 2008 2013).

Within philosophical aesthetics itself, the renewed interest in the aesthetics of nature was also fueled byanother development: the publication of Ronald Hepburn's seminal article “Contemporary Aesthetics andthe Neglect of Natural Beauty” (1966). Hepburn's essay helped to set the agenda for the aesthetics ofnature in the late twentieth century. After noting that by essentially reducing all of aesthetics tophilosophy of art, analytic aesthetics had virtually ignored the natural world, Hepburn argued thataesthetic appreciation of art frequently provides misleading models for the appreciation of nature.However, he nonetheless observed that there is in the aesthetic appreciation of nature, as in theappreciation of art, a distinction between appreciation that is only trivial and superficial and that which isserious and deep. He furthermore suggested that for nature such serious appreciation might require newand different approaches that can accommodate not only nature's indeterminate and varying character,but also both our multisensory experience and our diverse understanding of it. By focusing attention onnatural beauty, Hepburn demonstrated that there could be significant philosophical investigation of theaesthetic experience of the world beyond the artworld. He thereby not only generated renewed interest inthe aesthetics of nature, he also laid foundations for environmental aesthetics in general as well as for the



aesthetics of everyday life.

In the wake of Hepburn’s article, the next major developments in the emerging field of environmentalaesthetics challenged both the idea that nature appreciation is not aesthetic and the persistence of artoriented approaches to the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Although these views about the appreciationof nature had found some grounding in analytic aesthetics' reduction of aesthetics to philosophy of art, asart’s monopoly on philosophical aesthetics began to weaken, they were increasing recognized to bedeeply counterintuitive. Concerning the former, many of our fundamental paradigms of aestheticexperience seem to be instances of appreciation of nature, such as our delight in a sunset or in a bird inflight. Moreover, the Western tradition in aesthetics, as well as other traditions, such as the Japanese, haslong been committed to doctrines that explicitly contradict the nonaesthetic conception of natureappreciation, such as the conviction that, as one philosopher expresses it, anything that can be viewed canbe viewed aesthetically (Ziff 1979). Concerning the artoriented models, it was argued by some that suchapproaches do not fully realize serious, appropriate appreciation of nature, but rather distort the truecharacter of natural environments. For example, the landscape model recommends framing and flatteningenvironments into scenery. Moreover, in focusing heavily on artistic qualities, these accounts are thoughtto neglect much of our normal experience and understanding of nature (Hepburn 1966, Carlson 1979,Berleant 1985 1988 1992, Saito 1998a 1998b). The problem, in short, is that they do not acknowledge theimportance of aesthetically appreciating nature, as one aesthetician puts it, “as nature” (Budd 2002).

3. Basic Positions in Environmental Aesthetics

After the emergence of environmental aesthetics as a significant area of philosophical research, somebasic positions crystallized. In the last part of the last century, these positions developed distinct points ofview concerning the nature of the aesthetic appreciation of natural environments. At that time, thepositions were frequently distinguished as belonging in one or the other of two groups, alternativelylabeled cognitive and noncognitive (Godlovitch 1994, Eaton 1998, Carlson and Berleant 2004),conceptual and nonconceptual (Moore 1999), or narrative and ambient (Foster 1998). The distinctionmarks a crucial division between those positions that take knowledge and information to be essential toaesthetic appreciation of environments and those that take some other feature, such as engagement,emotion arousal, or imagination, to be paramount. It thereby gives structure and organization to thediverse points of view represented in the field. Moreover, it is in line with similar distinctions used inaesthetic theory concerning the appreciation of art, music, and literature.

3.1 Cognitive Views

What are called cognitive, conceptual, or narrative positions in environmental aesthetics are united by thethought that knowledge and information about the nature of the object of appreciation is central to itsaesthetic appreciation. Thus, they champion the idea that nature must be appreciated, as one author putsit, “on its own terms” (Saito 1998b). These positions tend to reject aesthetic approaches to environments,such as that governed by the idea of the picturesque, that draw heavily on the aesthetic experience of artfor modeling the appreciation of nature. Yet they affirm that art appreciation can nonetheless show someof what is required in an adequate account of nature appreciation. For example, in serious, appropriateaesthetic appreciation of works of art, it is taken to be essential that we experience works as what they infact are and in light of knowledge of their real natures. Thus, for instance, appropriate appreciation of awork such as Picasso's Guernica (1937) requires that we experience it as a painting and moreover as acubist painting, and therefore that we appreciate it in light of our knowledge of paintings in general andof cubist paintings in particular (Walton 1970). Adopting this general line of thought, one cognitiveapproach to nature appreciation, sometimes labeled the natural environmental model (Carlson 1979) orscientific cognitivism (Parsons 2002), holds that just as serious, appropriate aesthetic appreciation of art



requires knowledge of art history and art criticism, such aesthetic appreciation of nature requiresknowledge of natural history—the knowledge provided by the natural sciences and especially sciencessuch as geology, biology, and ecology. The idea is that scientific knowledge about nature can reveal theactual aesthetic qualities of natural objects and environments in the way in which knowledge about arthistory and art criticism can for works of art. In short, to appropriately aesthetically appreciate nature “onits own terms” is to appreciate it as it is characterized by natural science (Carlson 1981 2000 2007,Rolston 1995, Eaton 1998, Matthews 2002, Parsons 2002 2006b).

Other cognitive or quasicognitive accounts of the aesthetic appreciation of environments differ fromscientific cognitivism concerning either the kind of cognitive resources taken to be relevant to suchappreciation or the degree to which these resources are considered relevant. On the one hand, severalcognitive approaches emphasize different kinds of information, claiming that appreciating nature “on itsown terms” might well involve experiencing it in light of various cultural and historical traditions. Thus,in appropriate aesthetic appreciation, local and regional narratives, folklore, and even mythologicalstories about nature are endorsed either as complementary with or as alternative to scientific knowledge(Sepänmaa 1993, Saito 1998b, Heyd 2001). On the other hand, another at least quasicognitive approachstrongly supports the idea that nature must be appreciated “as nature”, but does not go beyond thatconstraint. The justification for accepting the “as nature” restriction is that the aesthetic experience ofnature should be true to what nature actually is. This, however, is the extent of the position's commitmentto cognitivism and marks the limits of the similarity that it finds between art appreciation and theappreciation of nature. It rejects the idea that scientific knowledge about nature can reveal the actualaesthetic qualities of natural objects and environments in the way in which knowledge about art historyand art criticism can for works of art. Moreover, it holds that, unlike the case with art, many of the mostsignificant aesthetic dimensions of natural objects and environments are extremely relative to conditionsof observation. The upshot is that aesthetic appreciation of nature is taken to allow a degree of freedomthat is denied to the aesthetic appreciation of art (Fisher 1998, Budd 2002).

3.2 Noncognitive Views

Standing in contrast to the cognitive positions in environmental aesthetics are several socalled noncognitive, nonconceptual, or ambient approaches. However, “noncognitive” here should not be taken inits older philosophical sense, as meaning primarily or only “emotive”. Rather it indicates simply thatthese views hold that something other than a cognitive component, such as scientific knowledge orcultural tradition, is the central feature of the aesthetic appreciation of environments. The leading noncognitive approach, called the aesthetics of engagement, draws on phenomenology as well as on analyticaesthetics. In doing so, it rejects many of the traditional ideas about aesthetic appreciation not only fornature but also for art. It argues that the theory of disinterestedness involves a mistaken analysis of theconcept of the aesthetic and that this is most evident in the aesthetic experience of natural environments.According to the engagement approach, disinterested appreciation, with its isolating, distancing, andobjectifying gaze, is out of place in the aesthetic experience of nature, for it wrongly abstracts bothnatural objects and appreciators from the environments in which they properly belong and in whichappropriate appreciation is achieved. Thus, the aesthetics of engagement stresses the contextualdimensions of nature and our multisensory experiences of it. Viewing the environment as a seamlessunity of places, organisms, and perceptions, it challenges the importance of traditional dichotomies, suchas that between subject and object. It beckons appreciators to immerse themselves in the naturalenvironment and to reduce to as small a degree as possible the distance between themselves and thenatural world. In short, appropriate aesthetic experience is held to involve the total immersion of theappreciator in the object of appreciation (Berleant 1985 1988 1992 2013).

Other noncognitive positions in environmental aesthetics contend that dimensions other than



engagement are central to aesthetic experience. What is known as the arousal model holds that we mayappreciate nature simply by opening ourselves to it and being emotionally aroused by it. On this view,this less intellectual, more visceral experience of nature constitutes a legitimate way of aestheticallyappreciating it that does not require any knowledge gained from science or elsewhere (Carroll 1993).Another alternative similarly argues that neither scientific nor any other kind of knowledge facilitatesreal, appropriate appreciation of nature, but not because such appreciation need involve only emotionalarousal, but rather because nature itself is essentially alien, aloof, distant, and unknowable. This position,which may be called the mystery model, contends that appropriate experience of nature incorporates asense of being separate from nature and of not belonging to it—a sense of mystery involving a state ofappreciative incomprehension (Godlovitch 1994). A fourth noncognitive approach brings togetherseveral features thought to be relevant to nature appreciation. It attempts to balance engagement and thetraditional idea of disinterestedness, while giving center stage to imagination. This position distinguishesa number of different kinds of imagination—associative, metaphorical, exploratory, projective,ampliative, and revelatory. It also responds to concerns that imagination introduces subjectivity byappealing to factors such as guidance by the object of appreciation, the constraining role ofdisinterestedness, and the notion of “imagining well” (Brady 1998 2003). A related point of view, whichstresses the metaphysical dimensions of imagination, might also be placed in the noncognitive group,although doing so requires making certain assumptions about the cognitive content of metaphysicalspeculation. According to this account, the imagination interprets nature as revealing metaphysicalinsights: insights about things such as the meaning of life, the human condition, or our place in thecosmos. Thus, this position includes within appropriate aesthetic experience of nature those abstractmeditations and ruminations about ultimate reality that our encounters with nature sometimes engender(Hepburn 1996).

4. Recent Developments in Environmental Aesthetics

Since they first took form in the late twentieth century, the basic positions in environmental aestheticshave expanded from their initial focus on natural environments to consider human and humaninfluencedenvironments and developed such as to include an aesthetic investigation of everyday life in general. Atthe same time, the relationship between environmental aesthetics and environmentalism has beenincreasingly scrutinized, resulting in criticism of earlier work in the aesthetics of nature as well asdetailed assessments of contemporary positions. Concerning both the aesthetics of human environmentsand environmentalism, approaches that combine the resources of both cognitive and noncognitive pointsof views have become more common and seem especially fruitful.

4.1 The Aesthetics of Human Environments and Everyday Life

Both the cognitive and the noncognitive orientations in environmental aesthetics have resources that arebrought to bear on the aesthetic investigation of human and humaninfluenced environments as well ason that of everyday life in general. Of the basic positions, some noncognitive approaches have made themost substantial contributions to these areas of research. The aesthetics of engagement is particularlysignificant in this regard, constituting a model for the aesthetic appreciation of not simply both nature andart, but also of every other aspect of human experience; it studies the aesthetic dimensions of ruralcountrysides, small towns, large cities, theme parks, gardens, museums, and even human relationships.Moreover, unlike most other approaches in environmental aesthetics, from early on in the developmentof the field, the aesthetics of engagement focused not only on natural environments, but also on humanenvironments and especially on urban environments (Berleant 1978 1984 1986). Much of this material isavailable in more recently published volumes (Berleant 1997 2005 2010 2012). Consequently, it hasbecome a foundation for a substantial body of research on the aesthetic appreciation of urban



environments (Haapala 1998, von Bonsdorff 2002, Blanc 2013, Paetzold 2013). Other noncognitiveaccounts, such as that which stresses imagination, likewise illuminate our aesthetic responses to a rangeof human environments as well as to our uses of them for resource extraction and agricultural production(Brady 2003 2006).

Cognitive accounts also investigate the aesthetic appreciation of human environments, arguing that, aswith natural environments, appropriate appreciation depends on knowledge of what something is, what itis like, and why it is as it is. Scientific cognitivism claims that for human environments knowledgeprovided by the social sciences, especially history, is equally as relevant to aesthetic appreciation as thatgiven by the natural sciences (Carlson 2008). For appropriate appreciation of rural and urbanenvironments, as well as specialized environments such as those of industry and agriculture, what isneeded is information about their histories, their functions, and their roles in our lives (Carlson 19852001, Parsons 2008b, Parsons and Carlson 2008). Other approaches emphasize the aesthetic potential ofcultural traditions, which seem especially relevant to the appreciation of what might be termed culturallandscapes—environments that constitute important places in the cultures and histories of particulargroups of people. What is often called a sense of place, together with ideas and images from folklore,mythology, and religion, frequently plays a significant role in individuals' aesthetic experience of theirown home landscapes (Saito 1985, Sepänmaa 1993, Carlson 2000, Firth 2008).

Fruitful approaches to the aesthetic appreciation of human environments as well as to other aspects ofeveryday life also can be found in views that draw on both cognitive and noncognitive positions. Therehave been several attempts to explicitly forge connections between the two orientations (Foster 1998,Moore 1999 2008, Berleant and Carlson 2007). Moreover, there are numerous studies that, movingbeyond the cognitive/noncognitive distinction, inform our understanding of the appreciation of humanenvironments (Arntzen and Brady 2008, Herrington 2009), such as rural countrysides (Sepänmaa 2005,von Bonsdorff 2005, Andrews 2007, Leddy 2008) and urban cityscapes (von Bonsdorff 2002, Macauley2007) as well as more specialized environments, such as industrial sites (Saito 2004, Maskit 2007) andshopping centers (Brottman 2007, Vogel 2014). Beyond the consideration of these larger, publicenvironments, the aesthetics of everyday life becomes especially relevant. It investigates not only theaesthetic qualities of smaller, more personal environments, such as individual living spaces, for example,yards and houses (Melchionne 1998 2002, Lee 2010), but also the aesthetic dimensions of normal daytoday experiences (Leddy 1995 2005b 1012b, Saito 2001 2007a 2012, Haapala 2005, Mandoki 2007, Irvin2008a 2008b, Maskit 2011) as well as everyday activities such as playing sports (Welsch 2005) anddining (Korsmeyer 1999). There are several collections focusing on this kind of research that yieldinsight into and encourage appreciation of almost every aspect of day to day life (von Bonsdorff andHaapala 1999, Light and Smith 2005, Yuedi and Carter 2014). However, although the various lines ofresearch are clearly very productive, the credentials of the aesthetics of everyday life as an investigationof genuine aesthetic experiences have recently been challenged and debated (Dowling 2010, Melchionne2011 2013 2014, Leddy 2012a, Naukkarinen 2013).

Nonetheless, in spite of these challenges and concerns about the aesthetics of everyday life, when it turnsto the investigation of things such as sports and food, it begins to come full circle, connectingenvironmental aesthetics back to the edges of more traditional aesthetics and to the study of clearlygenuine aesthetic experiences. By way of the aesthetics of everyday life, environmental aesthetics makescontact with the philosophy of borderline art forms, not only the “arts” of sport and cuisine, but also theart of gardening (Miller 1993, Carlson 1997, Ross 1998, Cooper 2006, Parsons 2008a) and the arts oflandscaping, architecture, and design (Stecker 1999, Carlson 2000, Parsons 2008b 2011, Forsey 2013). Inaddition, but now within the context of environmental aesthetics, traditional art forms, such as poetry andliterature (Berleant 1991 2004, Ross 1998, Sepänmaa 2004) and painting, sculpture, dance, and music(Berleant 1991 2004, Ross 1998, Mullis 2014) as well as newer forms, such as environmental art with itsspecial relevance to environmental aesthetics (Crawford 1983, Carlson 1986, Ross 1993, Brady 2007,



Brook 2007, Fisher 2007, Lintott 2007, Parsons 2008a, Simus 2008b), are explored and reexplored—both as aesthetically significant dimensions of our everyday experiences and concerning their roles inshaping aesthetic appreciation of both natural and human environments.

4.2 Environmental Aesthetics and Environmentalism

The relationships between contemporary environmentalism and the positions and ideas of environmentalaesthetics have sources in the aesthetics of nature developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.As noted, early environmental movements, especially in North America, were fueled by a mode ofaesthetic appreciation shaped not only by the notion of the picturesque but also by ideas developed bythinkers such as Muir (Hargrove 1979, Callicott 1994, Wattles 2013). However, more recently therelationships between environmental aesthetics and environmentalism have been less congenial (Carlson2010). Some individuals interested in the conservation and protection of both natural and human heritageenvironments have not found in traditional aesthetics of nature the resources that they believe are neededin order to carry out an environmentalist agenda (Loftis 2003). Others investigate problems posed byenvironments with unique features, such as isolation (Parsons 2015). The problem is especially acuteconcerning environments, such as wetlands, that do not fit conventional conceptions of scenic beauty(Rolston 2000, Callicott 2003). Moreover, in line with earlier criticisms that much of the empirical workin landscape assessment and planning was focused only on scenic, picturesque environments, much ofthe historical tradition concerning the aesthetic appreciation of nature has come under attack. Variousthemes in the aesthetics of nature, such as appreciation grounded in the idea of the picturesque, have beencriticized in a number of ways: as anthropocentric (Godlovitch 1994), sceneryobsessed (Saito 1998a),trivial (Callicott 1994), subjective (Thompson 1995), and/or morally vacuous (Andrews 1998). Similarly,in agreement with the aesthetics of engagement's critique of the theory of disinterestedness, some findthat concept to be questionable from an environmental standpoint (Rolston 1998).

There are a variety of responses to these kinds of criticisms of traditional aesthetics of nature and of thenotions of disinterestedness and the picturesque. Some reassess and defend the picturesque tradition,arguing that it, as well as some other aspects of the tradition, has been misunderstood by somecontemporary aestheticians (Brook 2008, Paden 2013, Paden et al 2013). Others turn to the investigationof the toolong neglected member of the original eighteenthcentury triumvirate of the beautiful, thesublime, and the picturesque, finding in the sublime new resources for approaching the aestheticappreciation of the natural world (Brady 2012 2013, Shapshay 2013). However, whatever the finalverdict about the significance of the picturesque and the sublime, the resources of noncognitivepositions, especially the aesthetics of engagement, are taken to counter the criticisms that, due to theinfluence of ideas such as that of the picturesque, aesthetic experience of nature must be bothanthropocentric and sceneryobsessed (Rolston 1998 2002). The charge of anthropocentricity is alsoexplicitly addressed by the mystery approach, which attempts to give aesthetic appreciation of nature an“acentric” basis (Godlovitch 1994). Concerning the concept of disinterestedness, some philosophers yethold the view that some form of the theory of disinterestedness is essential, since without it the notion ofthe aesthetic itself lacks conceptual grounding (Budd 2002), while others claim that an analysis ofaesthetic experience in terms of the concept of disinterestedness helps to meet the charges that traditionalaesthetics is anthropocentric and subjective, since such an analysis supports the objectivity of aestheticjudgments (Brady 2003). Similarly, cognitive accounts also furnish replies to some of these charges.Scientific cognitivism in particular, with its focus on scientific knowledge, is claimed to help meet theworry that aesthetic appreciation of environments is of little significance in environmental conservationand preservation since aesthetic appreciation is trivial and subjective (Hettinger 2005, Parsons 2006a2008a). However, the extent to which scientific cognitivism and related views can underwrite a robustobjectivism concerning the appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature is questioned on various grounds(Budd 2002, Hettinger 2007, Bannon 2011, Stecker 2012).



In spite of such reservations about cognitivist positions and objectivity, in light of the seeming relevanceof scientific cognitivism to environmental preservation and its stress on the importance of naturalsciences such as geology, biology, and especially ecology in aesthetic appreciation of nature, it issometimes interpreted as an “ecological aesthetic” in the tradition of Aldo Leopold, who linked thebeauty of nature to ecological integrity and stability (Callicott 1994 2003, Gobster 1995). However,although it has roots in Leopold’s thought, the explicit idea of an ecological aesthetic, or as it issometimes called, an ecoaesthetic, seems to have somewhat later origins (Meeker 1872, Koh 1988).Moreover, although the idea has a role within analytic environmental aesthetics, perhaps best filled byscientific cognitivism, it has also been adopted by some philosophers working in the continentaltradition. For example, it is claimed that although phenomenological work in “ecological aesthetics” is“still in its infancy”, the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and MerleauPonty is applicable to its developmentand, moreover, that the aesthetics of engagement is the first and currently the strongest “comprehensivephenomenological theory of ecological aesthetics” (Toadvine 2010). There is also more recent researchin environmental aesthetics that draws on both analytic and continental traditions (Tafalla 2011, Leddy2012b, Maskit 2014).

There is, in addition, considerable interest in environmental aesthetics in China (Chen 2015) andespecially in ecological aesthetics. The research is pursued by several Chinese aestheticians, who arelikewise influenced by work in phenomenology and have developed robust versions of ecologicalaesthetics. Although much of this work is only available in Chinese, one version accessible in Englishembraces, as the “four keystones of ecological aesthetic appreciation”, not only the centrality ofecological knowledge defended by scientific cognitivism and the rejection of the duality of humanity andthe natural world endorsed by the aesthetic of engagement, but also the overarching value of ecosystembiodiversity and health and the continued guidance of ecological ethics (Cheng 2013a 2013b). The focuson the last two of these four “keystones” is comparable to attempts by some Western aestheticians tobring aesthetic appreciation of environments, both natural and human, in line with environmental andmoral obligations to maintain ecological health (Rolston 1995, Eaton 1997 1998, Lintott 2006, Saito2007a 2007b) and to forge strong positive links between aesthetic appreciation of nature and naturepreservation (Rolston 2002, Brady 2003, Carlson and Lintott 2007, Parsons 2008a, Lintott and Carlson2014). In this sense, ecological aesthetics speaks to the charge that traditional aesthetic appreciation ofnature is morally vacuous, although the degree to which moral considerations and appropriate aestheticappreciation of nature are importantly related remains a matter of discussion and debate (Loftis 2003,Bannon 2011, Stecker 2012).

Like the movement toward more ecologically informed aesthetic appreciation, the tradition that connectsthe aesthetic appreciation of nature with positive aesthetics has also been supported by someenvironmental philosophers (Rolston 1988, Hargrove 1989). The contention that untouched, pristinenature has only or primarily positive aesthetic qualities has been related to scientific cognitivism. Somesuggest that linking the appreciation of nature to scientific knowledge explains how positive aestheticappreciation is nurtured by a scientific worldview that increasingly interprets the natural world as havingpositive aesthetic qualities, such as order, balance, unity, and harmony (Carlson 1984). Otherphilosophers see the relationship between scientific cognitivism and positive aesthetics somewhatconversely, arguing that the latter should simply be assumed, in which case it provides support for theformer (Parsons 2002). Nonetheless, several aestheticians and environmental philosophers find positiveaesthetics generally problematic, either since it appears to undercut the possibility of the kind ofcomparative assessments thought to be necessary for environmental planning and preservation(Thompson 1995, Godlovitch 1998a) or because the idea itself seems unintuitive, obscure, and/orinadequately justified (Godlovitch 1998b, Saito 1998a, Budd 2002, Stecker 2012). Even philosopherswho are somewhat open to the idea of positive aesthetics have some reservations about its originalformulation, arguing that it depends too heavily on a now outdated conception of ecology and/or doesnot adequately include an evolutionary understanding of nature as an essential component of its aesthetic



appreciation (Simus 2008a, Paden et al 2012). Such considerations may point to a more plausible versionof positive aesthetics.

In view of this kind of fruitful discussion both within and among the various positions represented incontemporary environmental aesthetics, perhaps the proposals most useful for promoting and supportingthe aesthetic appreciation and preservation of all kinds of environments, both natural and human, arethose that depend not simply on any one particular model or theory of aesthetic experience, but ratherattempt to constructively bring together the resources of several different positions (Nassauer 1997,Lintott 2006, Carlson 2008, Moore 2008, Cheng et al 2013). For example, there are efforts to combineelements of cognitive approaches with noncognitive points of view, such as imaginationbased accounts(Fudge 2001) or the aesthetics of engagement (Rolston 1998 2002, Saito 2007b). In addition, somethinkers explore new avenues that can be constructively related to environmental aesthetics, for instance,feminist theory (Lee 2006, Lintott 2010), social and political theory (Berleant 2005 2012, Ross 2005,Simus 2008b), philosophy of biology (Parsons and Carlson 2008), and animal treatment and protectionissues (Parsons 2007, Hettinger 2010, Semczyszyn 2013, Brady 2014a). Others explicitly pursue theapplication of theory to environmental policy and practice (Saito 2007b, Berleant 2010 2012, Parsons2010, Sepänmaa 2010, Robinson and Elliott 2011, Brady 2014b). All these contributions continue toshape the future directions of environmental aesthetics (Saito 2010, Blanc 2012, Drenthen and Keulartz2014). Such innovative, eclectic approaches may be the most successful not only in furthering a widerange of environmental goals and practices but also in fostering a deeper understanding and appreciationof the aesthetic potential of the world in which we live.

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