Abstract
For Naess, both human inquiry and an optimal human life include both reason and feelings. In challenging the Western dichotomization of rationality and feelings, Naess renounces the dominant conception of reason: an instrument, albeit in the service of humanity, whose aim is to relieve suffering, to liberate all human beings from all forms of slavery, but to do so only in so far as reason is “interpreted in relation to technical considerations, within a strict economic framework” (p. 88). From Socrates to the Stoics to the Enlightenment, reason was assumed to be the force that would control the inner beast and elevate the human spirit above the conflictual morass of enthusiasm. For Naess, however, “the word reason is used for everything that is rational in a more or less limited and superficial perspective” (p. 3). Our view of reason is not simply a narrow construing of rationality but is “the voice of fluff rationality, rationality for trivial things” and “a petty rationality—that does not ask what are our most fundamental priorities and values as human beings” (pp. 51, 87). Such a rethinking of the Enlightenment project, however, is not unfamiliar. We have had several challenges to the Enlightenment's faith in the efficacy of instrumental reason and optimism in its fulfillment from the German Idealists and English Romantics, to the existential thinkers, the Frankfurt School, and the present (post) poststructural movement. What makes Naess' view both inspiring and useful is that he includes what has previously been by and large denied by both the Enlightenment's defenders and detractors: human feelings and the natural world.
Naess points out that Life's Philosophy “is not a professional treatise” (p. xii). This does not mean, however, that the book is not philosophical. Indeed, he begins with an important distinction: Functioning is not the same as living. His focus is on living. Naess observes that
life may be considered as a landscape through which we travel in different ways. That journey on which I would like to take the reader starts out from today's crude and indefensible underestimation of the development of feelings in life and society; our destination is an awareness of the decisive role that feelings play, indeed ought to play, in human thought and action. (p. xi)
The journey theme metaphorizes cognitive development and opens interpretative pathways to at least five important ideas: (1) Thought is embodied as we are an embodiment of life, (2) life is a living whole across and through which we move, (3) effective movement through a living landscape entails changing how we think and what we do, (4) altering our understanding of the role feelings play in our life develops our awareness of our living experiences in a more than human world, and (5) this awareness allows us to act according to our deepest values. This more-than-human world is not experienced by the detached functioning of instrumental reason, but is experienced, Harold Glasser explains in his “Introduction,” “somatically and intellectually in concert as variously ordered, multilayered gestalts” (p. xv). I don't think that Naess is speaking figuratively when he states that his relationship to the earth is more than an analogy. I think that he is speaking of what Buddhists call muga, a deep identification with nature. “I do not step into the river,” Naess avers, “I am the river” (p. 3).
Naess' philosophical position is founded on two main concepts: possibilism and pluralism (p. xviii). As Harold Glasser notes in his introduction these informed “Naess' transition from scientism to philosophy and from the theory of scientific models to the theory of philosophical system” (p. xviii). Possibilism indicates the idea that anything can happen. “Humans are fallible through and through,” Naess writes, “and they have no guarantee that the future will resemble the past. Anything may happen in the future” (p. 4). Pluralism suggests that “there are a rich variety of potential lifestyles and specific actions in concrete situations that are consistent with our broadest and deepest norms—our ultimate beliefs” (p. xviii). For Naess, possibilism and pluralism are palliatives to the human condition. Naess claims that they “might exert such an influence on emotions that they are adapted to helping us out of seemingly unalterable circumstances” (p. 5).
It is in the thought of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) that Naess finds the grounds to propose a rapprochement between self-interested reason and the vitality of life. Naess proclaims that “what we need is always to unify feelings and reason in the sense of ratio” to reestablish our intrinsic connection to the world (p. 12). Relying on Spinoza's ontology and “rational human psychology,” Naess is not turning a blind eye to recent work in emotional intelligence by such thinkers as Daniel Goleman, Howard Gardener, and Martha Nussbaum. Indeed, the work in developing a theory of emotional intelligence is part of a larger trend that supports Naess' optimism. Naess argues that “the most important reason for bringing in Spinoza is his optimistic view of human nature. The development of the potential of our own nature has a positive emotional value. Consequently, the active emotions have a flying start at birth” (p. 85). The positive emotions are what Spinoza called active emotions. These include love, compassion, joy, and happiness. The negative or passive emotions such as hatred, arrogance, and envy enslave us. Ratio is Spinoza's term for the most fundamental aspect of a human being: “The voice of ratio” is “the voice of conscience, an inner voice that most often communicates through the emotions” and allows us, when we are confronted with “a vital choice of action,” to make that “choice [which] is in accord with human nature or essence” (p. 10). Naess explains that “the voice of ratio proclaims generosity and spiritual strength, and hence all the other positive qualities, also toward fellow creatures” (p. 142). The role of ratio is to help us “transform what we call negative emotions into positive ones” (p. 11).
Although some professional philosophers and scholars may be put off by Naess' lack of historical context in explaining Spinoza's complex tri-stage development of human understanding, Naess succeeds in conveying another side of the Enlightenment that allows for a contemporary (re)appropriation of the ideals of freedom, progress, and reason. Naess' desire is to “save the word of reason from its contemporary straitjacket of petty, utilitarian, and instrumental action” (p. 87). Spinoza shows how there is much more to reason than that claimed by any of his fellow Age-of-Reason philosophers and scientists, which he does by explaining how “ratio and the positive feelings coalesce in an internal relationship deep in our being” (p. 14). The unity of reason and feelings in Spinoza's view allows Naess to maintain that “nothing should be called reasonable that does not support one's basic values” (p. 14).
Although Naess does spend quite a bit of space on the strengths of Spinoza's theory and the weakness of our contemporary view of reason, the focus of the book is on our emotional life, choosing the quality of life over the quantity of life, and developing feelings for nature. Naess defines “a feeling for Nature” as “a positive feeling for areas that are not obviously dominated by human activity” (p. 105). Feelings for nature allow us to extend our care, beyond the human and to the nonhuman. Naess' ecosophical, position a neologism that “concerns wisdom in relation to the foundation of life on earth,” takes as its motto, “Extended care for nonhuman beings, deepened care for human beings” (pp. 100, 107). The practice of extended care is based on both “wisdom in relation to the foundation of life” and maturity in emotional development. Furthermore, extended care becomes for Naess the preeminent way of acting or “feeling into—one's own emotions in real situations” (p. 124).
Important to the present volume as well as Naess' broader concept of deep ecology is his insistence on developing the self. Naess imagines a dynamic and fluid selfhood that is in conflict with Western thought and the wider culture. Western conceptions of self-identity have tended to focus on the self being either a substance or an entity, an internality opposed in various ways to an external world of “others” and things. Naess, however, suggests something radical: “I have no very clear idea what are the limits of the self; perhaps it flows out and expands, or contracts within. It is never the same. It seems more like a flow than anything solid” (p. 23). The invocation of Solon's “Know Thyself” is closely tied to the Socratic life of questioning whose aim is to establish self-understanding in action, a rigorous process of continual self-examination. Naess argues that critical self-examination leading to self-understanding is important for educating youth and their teachers in developing both reason and feelings. Rather than orienting education to the information and attention economy, it is “far more important to help students develop self-criticism, which, in its turn, requires that the teachers themselves be convincing in their own capacity for self-criticism” (p. 156). Self-criticism leads to both a sense of one's own limits and an open mind.
Life's Philosophy ends with the philosopher enunciating his view of integrating reason and feelings into a quality of life that is active. Appropriately titled “The Art of Living: To Do Little Things in a Big Way,” Naess reiterates an important thesis of Spinoza's work, that the cultivation of positive feelings will dispel negative feelings and help us cope “with the many hurdles of life” (p. 161). Yet the art of living also includes “the ability to lead a life characterized by happiness” (p. 162). Such happiness, however, is only vaguely reminiscent of Aretaic or Virtue theories of ethics because Naess' interpretation of happiness as quality of life includes not only caring for oneself and others but also “how one feels and appreciates the world around one” (p. 167). Key elements of appreciation are an understanding that life is meaningful, taking “pleasure in the world as it appears to you at the moment,” and “love of the creative force in existence and love of God—amor intellectualis Dei” (p. 172). Naess is acutely aware that positive feelings can run down, and so he makes it a point to explain that we falter, that we can “lose the spark and the ability to inspire others” (p. 176). A weakness of his text is that Naess never comes out and offers specific details on how to reestablish our freedom in positive feelings. One implied remedy is the importance of “self-irony, humor, and play” (p. 177).
Life's Philosophy is an excellent introduction to the basic themes of Naess' life's work. One does not need training in philosophy or psychology to access its bold and inspiring ideas because the formal explanations and arguments are kept to a minimum so that Naess can focus on showing rather than telling the reader the importance of a well-lived life, developing one's feelings, and not restricting one's feelings to oneself or other human beings, but to extend our positive feelings, our joy, love, compassion, and sense of humor to all living things. Reading this book, one glimpses Naess' optimism and is inspired to accept that not only are all things possible but also that there are myriad pathways available to us. All that remains is for us to choose the path we would take and extend our care to all living things. This is indeed the greatest strength of this work.