Arne Næss
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Arne Dekke Eide Næss (27 January 1912 – 12 January 2009) was a Norwegian philosopher who coined the term "deep ecology" and was an important intellectual and inspirational figure within the environmental movement of the late twentieth century.
Næss cited Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring as being a key influence in his vision of deep ecology. Næss combined his ecological vision with Gandhian nonviolence and on several occasions participated in direct action.
Philosophy
Næss' Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches Verhalten (1936) anticipated many themes familiar in post-war analytic philosophy. Næss' main philosophical work from the 1950s was entitled "Interpretation and Preciseness". This was an application of set theory to the problems of language interpretation, extending the work of semanticists such as Charles Kay Ogden in The Meaning of Meaning. A simple way of explaining it is that any given utterance (word, phrase, or sentence) can be considered as having different potential interpretations, depending on prevailing language norms, the characteristics of particular persons or groups of users, and the language situation in which the utterance occurred. These differing interpretations are to be formulated in more precise language represented as subsets of the original utterance. Each subset can, in its turn, have further subsets (theoretically ad infinitum). The advantages of this conceptualisation of interpretation are various. It enables systematic demonstration of possible interpretation, making possible evaluation of which are the more and less "reasonable interpretations". It is a logical instrument for demonstrating language vagueness, undue generalisation, conflation, pseudo-agreement and effective communication.
Næss developed a simplified, practical textbook embodying these advantages, entitled Communication and Argument, which became a valued introduction to this pragmatics or "language logic", and was used over many decades as a sine qua non for the preparatory examination at the University of Oslo, later known as "Examen Philosophicum" ("Exphil").
Recommendations for public debate
Communication and Argument included his recommendations for objective public debate. Næss argued for adhering to the following rules to make discussions as fruitful and pleasant as possible:
- Avoid tendentious irrelevance
Examples: Personal attacks, claims of opponents' motivation, explaining reasons for an argument. - Avoid tendentious quoting
Quotes should not be edited regarding the subject of the debate. - Avoid tendentious ambiguity
Ambiguity can be exploited to support criticism. - Avoid tendentious use of straw men
Assigning views to the opponent that he or she does not hold. - Avoid tendentious statements of fact
Information put forward should never be untrue or incomplete, and one should not withhold relevant information. - Avoid tendentious tone of presentation
Examples: irony, sarcasm, pejoratives, exaggeration, subtle (or open) threats.
For many years these points were part of two compulsory courses in philosophy taught in Norwegian universities ("Examen philosophicum" and "Examen facultatum").
Ecosophy T
Ecosophy T, as distinct from deep ecology, was originally the name of his personal philosophy. Others such as Warwick Fox have interpreted deep ecology as a commitment to ecosophy T, Næss's personal beliefs. The 'T' referred to Tvergastein, a mountain hut where he wrote many of his books, and reflected Næss's view that everyone should develop his own philosophy.
Næss's ecosophy can be summed up as self-realization. According to Næss, every being, whether human, animal or vegetable, has an equal right to live and to blossom. Næss states that through self-realization humans can become part of the ecosystems of Earth, in distinction to becoming only themselves. According to one writer, Næss defined self-realization as that if one does not know how the outcomes of one's actions will affect other beings, one should not act.
