Is Nature Immaterial? The Possibilities for Environmental Education Without an Environment

Abstract

Contemporary thinking is generally based on substance, as opposed to process, metaphysics: in other words, the belief that the world and the universe are best understood in terms of material rather than events. The environment, for example, is conceived of as substantial; nature as a web of interconnected, if often fragile entities. In this tradition, there is also a strong legacy of mind-body dualism: the belief that the (immaterial) human mind acts on the inert and mechanical "body" of nature. Process metaphysics, on the other hand, posits the world as events in which human beings are implicated. This paper adopts a process perspective in attempting to develop a posthumanist approach to education, rooted in the idea of living as semiosis.