This section is the first five paragraphs from an open article entitled ‘A Social Ecology’ by John Clark in M. Zimmerman et al., Environmental Philosophy, second edition (Prentice Hall, 1997)
Humanity is Nature achieving self-consciousness.
--Elisée Reclus
In its deepest and most authentic sense, a social ecology is the awakening earth community reflecting on itself, uncovering its history, exploring its present predicament, and contemplating its future. One aspect of this awakening is a process of philosophical reflection. As a philosophical approach, a social ecology investigates the ontological, epistemological, ethical and political dimensions of the relationship between the social and the ecological, and seeks the practical wisdom that results from such reflection. It seeks to give us, as beings situated in the course of real human and natural history, guidance in facing specific challenges and opportunities. In doing so, it develops an analysis that is both holistic and dialectical, and a social practice that might best be described as an eco-communitarianism.
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