This handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of philosophical thinking about the aesthetics of the natural and human-made environments, exploring the topic's foundations, key ideas, and current debates.
Throughout history and across cultures, peoples' perceptions of beauty and ugliness in their surroundings have been an important part of the human experience. This volume contains more than thirty contributions from leading scholars examining environmental appreciation from a variety of perspectives. Chapters cover a wide range of environments and issues, including the aesthetics of animals, natural sounds, gardens, the urban environment, and the relation between aesthetics and environmentalism. It also explores new topics such as the appreciation of nature in ancient thought, love of place, the traditional nature aesthetics of China and Japan, and the aesthetics of climate change.
The Routledge Handbook of Nature and Environmental Aesthetics will be essential reading for students and scholars working on the aesthetics of environment, as well as anyone who wants to think deeply about environmental beauty. Scholars working in related fields outside academic philosophy, such as geography, landscape studies, environmental psychology, and environmental studies will also find it an invaluable guide to contemporary debates.
This handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of philosophical thinking about the aesthetics of the natural and human-made environments, exploring the topic's foundations, key ideas, and current debates.
Introduction I. Historical Perspectives on the Aesthetics of Nature
2.
Ancient Attitudes
3. Kant on the Aesthetics of Nature
4. Nature Aesthetics in
the 19th Century
5. The Beauty of Nature in Western Art and Letters
6. Nature
Aesthetics in Traditional Chinese Thought
7. Japanese Aesthetics of Nature
II. Contemporary Approaches to Nature Appreciation
8. The Aesthetics of
Engagement
9. Science and Nature Appreciation
10. Formalism
11. Phenomenology
12. Pluralism
13. Contemporary Chinese Ecoaesthetics
14. Empirical
Psychology, Evolution, and Environmental Aesthetics
15. Environmental
Philosophy and Aesthetic Experience of Nature III. Issues and Topics
16.
Natural Sounds and Environmental Aesthetics
17. Positive Aesthetics and
Ugliness
18. The Aesthetics of Animals
19. Awe, Wonder, and the Sublime
20.
The Picturesque
21. Beauty and Love of Place IV. The Aesthetics of Human
Environments
22. Aesthetics of the Rural Landscape
23. Gardens
24. Aesthetics
of Architecture and Urban Environments
25. Aesthetic Experiences of Care
Affect Landscape Sustainability
26. Monuments and Ruins
27. Environmental Art
V. Environmentalism and Aesthetics
28. Aesthetics and Environmental
Protection
29. Justice and the Wilderness Aesthetic
30. Aesthetics of Nature
Restoration and Rewilding
31. Tourism, Biodiversity, and Aesthetics
32.
Aesthetics and Climate Change in the Anthropocene
Glenn Parsons is Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he writes on the aesthetics of nature, design, and human beauty. He is the author of Functional Beauty (with Allen Carlson, Oxford 2008), The Philosophy of Design (Polity 2015), and Aesthetics & Nature (Bloomsbury 2024).
Ned Hettinger is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. His specialization is environmental philosophy, including environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, and animal ethics. His papers have appeared in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, and the Journal of Aesthetic Education.
Sandra Shapshay is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY. Co-editor of the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, her research focuses on intersections of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. Publications include: What is the Monumental? JAAC (2021), and A Two-Tiered Theory of the Sublime BJA (2021).
