The Idea Of Wilderness Summary

Jamie Jones

9/16/15

Reading Journal 4

Max Oelschlaeger is an American ecological philosopher and works with the Center for Environmental Philosophy at the University of North Texas. Besides The Idea of Wilderness, Caring for Creation and The Environmental Imperative are two of his other books. The Idea of Wilderness won the Texas Institute of Letters’ 1991 Carr P. Collins Award and the 1998 San Antonio Conservation Society award. Oelschlager argues that the change of the idea of nature to the idea of wilderness has changed through the writings of environmentalist, scientist and that religion has played a huge impact on how we view and understand our relationship to nature. He hopes that humans realize their relationship with nature and learns to appreciate what nature has to offer. Oelschlaeger uses more archaeology evidence and reports and other works written by environmentalist and theologists.

Obviously one of the biggest differences between Oelschlaeger’s The Idea of Wilderness and Worster’s Nature’s Economy is the advancements made towards learning and understanding nature and how human views and interactions are influenced by religion, philosophy and writings.

Worster laid down the foundation to what is nature and the impact humans have on the environment. Oelschlaeger explains how the human mindset has changed from being a part and equal to nature to the Judeo-Christianity belief that nature is a gift to humans and humans have complete control and authority over nature and “the earth at human disposal” (103). Wilderness appears to be a term that was created through Judeo-Christianity and the belief that nature is below man. Before then, man lived with one and nature and nature was seen as civilized. Wilderness is the uncivilized part of the earth which needs to be tamed and managed by

name.
Oelschlaegar doesn’t dwell on the ideas or steps needed to ensure the survival of nature or what humans have done to destroy it, he focuses more on the concepts that humans can use to shape the future. He focuses more on the preservation of nature and examining our past relationships with nature one of the most interesting aspects of the book, a concept that Worster doesn’t discuss, is the idea that nature is a machine. Rene Descartes proposed the metaphysical schematism that sees the natural world as the machine. He believed that all the worlds “can be completely reduced to mechanical principles and laws” (85). The “matter-in-motion” principle suggest that everything in place for a reason, nature; humans, animals, plants, are all just a part of a big system that each one has a part and a role in order to make everything work(99-101).
His writing contributes to ecological thought. He uses already established works of preservations like John Muir and works by Gifford Pinchot, conservationists to try to bridge the gap between the two fields. Bridging this gap allows the author to argue that learning from the past is going to be beneficial to protecting the past but to try to undo what has already been done.
The Idea of Wilderness uses Nature’s Economy as a foundation to describe the future effects on earth is human nature continues and evolves on the path that it is currently on. He believes that all living beings should be treated equality, referring to the idea that humans should live within nature, similar to the Paleolithic way of life.