Environmental Philosophy: The Philosophy Of The Environment

The environmental philosophies – born as thoughts about the relation between mankind and nature – have found an unconscious and involuntary application in the construction sector. In the following there is a brief and non-exhaustive description of some of the most significant environmental philosophies and their transposition to the building sector. […] Since Plato times philosophers started dealing with the environmental issues. However, just in the XIX century their role became crucial due to the necessity of a wise utilization of the natural resources. This new kind of awareness gave rise to “The Ethic of the Earth” and “The Principle of the Conservation” by Pinchot, and later, in 1960, to one of the environmental manifestos: “Silent Spring”

As a consequence, man is the scale of everything and can decide about nature. The thesis of the man ruler of the nature can be found in many medieval religious commentaries, in which Saints are described taming wild beasts and, in this way, affirming the supremacy of the human being on nature. Besides, for Francis Bacon, the work and the domain of nature elevate human beings to God. Carl Marx affirms that the success is based on the limitless creative capacities of men. For the homo sapiens, able to tame nature and to civilize the barbarian populations, the idea of the fight and conquer is deeply associated to the cult. Reality can be always controlled by responsible, wise and constructive choices. Nature can be always tamed and exploited (Bourdeau, 2004).

The transposition of the environmental philosophy in the building-architectural field considers, as core of the building design, the fulfillment of the human needs and the achievement of the highest wellness also at the expense of the nature. This philosophy has been widely applied in periods in which human being was not yet aware of the irreversible damages on nature but he was able to use techniques and technologies derived by the industrial revolution. In that period the human being plundered the natural environmental resources in order to take advantage

The philosopher P. Rossi affirms that the human being has to deal with nature in a more conciliatory way receding from the ideology of the domain of the man on nature and from the submission of man to nature. The intermediate position, the one of the respect of nature, gives rise to the human sense of moral duty to proceed towards sustainable design. This philosophy is based on the assumption of the volunteer limitation of our capacity of manipulation and alteration of nature. Because of the scientific and technical conquests, for the first time since the human being is on Earth, we are responsible of the destiny of our planet and of the other human beings. This implies respect towards nature. The idea of the respect is different by the idea of the domain because it implies the consciousness of the responsibility and of a conscious auto-limitation. The idea of the respect is different by the ideology of the submission because is based on the utilization of the modern science and not on its refuse. The philosophy of the respect can grow just on the ashes of the idea of uncontrolled and wild domain of nature and on the ashes of a blind and utopian submission of the human being to nature. The domain of nature can destroy nature itself and also human being. While, the blind submission to nature