Tony:
>The point is that the metaphor helps us see beyond
> mindless development and articulate shared values about the integrity of
> life and ecosystems, etc.

I'd like to second that. It was Camus that said the ultimate question is
suicide or life. Of course some take their time at both/either/each. Earlier
Goethe had Werther lament his sorrows...

I would argue that Leopold was somewhat 'panentheistic' although his family
has reported that he was 'pantheistic' in his beliefs.

For that matter Wittgenstein seems to have believed that ethics was
'miraculous'...and went so far as to write that no matter how much fact a
tea cup holds, a gallon of water still is poured into it.

"Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will only express
facts; as a teacup will only hold a teacup full of water and if I were to
pour out a gallon over it. I said that so far as facts and propositions are
concerned there is only relative value and relative good."

When Aldo writes "thinking like a mountain" perhaps, given the context of
the dependent clause, it is likely that his simile means to convey something
about his own intuitions regarding the ecological fact, the ultimate fact
regarding existence.

Wittgenstein:

"Thus in ethical and religious language we seem constantly to be using
similes. But a simile must be the simile for something. And if I describe a
fact by means of a simile I must also be able to drop the simile to describe
the facts without it. Now in our case as soon as we try to drop the simile
and simply to state the facts which stand behind it. we find that there are
no such facts. And so, what at first appeared to be a simile now seems to be
mere nonsense....experiences...seem to those who have experienced them, for
instance to me, to have in some sense an intrinsic, absolute value...."It is
the paradox that an experience, a fact should seem to have supernatural
value."

Cassirer:

"All knowledge is metaphorical."

john foster



> -Tc
> Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> Department of English
> University of Houston-Downtown
> One Main Street
> Houston, TX 77002-0001
> 713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
> "Question Reality"
>
> > ----------
> > From:         Jim Tantillo[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent:         Friday, November 09, 2001 7:11 AM
> > To:   [log in to unmask]
> > Subject:      Re: thinking like a mountain . . . not.
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> > Tony wrote:
> > >
> > >         If a mountain thinks like a human (which is all we can do),
then
> > it
> > >would prefer integrity to steady erosion, no?
> >
> > I think this statement illustrates one of the main problems with
> > 'thinking like a mountain.'  If the idea behind thinking like a
> > mountain (or like whatever) is largely to adopt a radically non-human
> > or nonanthropocentric perspective, then how can we deign to speak for
> > the mountain and say that it prefers "integrity" to steady erosion?
> > Integrity is a human value; how do we know that in a radically
> > mountaincentric system of value, all of our human values aren't
> > turned on their head?  If all we are doing is merely exporting
> > anthropocentric values (albeit heavily tinged with ecocentric
> > flavor), then why bother with the trope of thinking like entities
> > that don't think?  We have a hard enough time as humans thinking.
> >
> > Point being, in a radically non-human system of "value," i.e. within
> > the context of geological and evolutionary history, it seems to me
> > that death and destruction, erosion and extinction, are the core
> > eco-and-mountain-centric values that nature "prefers."  It is we
> > humans who seek to preserve nature in a snapshot of time.  If we take
> > the time to conceive of a radically non-human system of eco-value
> > (I'm not sure we can really do this) or anti-value, then I think we
> > can more clearly see the problem with us as humans trying to imagine
> > what is in nature's best "interest."  I'm not sure nature has an
> > "interest."  We have interests, and one of them is a state of the
> > environment that is healthy and works for us and for all the other
> > critters and life forms out there that we value.  Otherwise, I think
> > from a radically non-human, evolutionary perspective, anything we can
> > do to hasten the destruction of the environment as WE know it has got
> > to be a good thing, in evolutionary and geologic terms . . .  which
> > really would be radically nonanthropocentric.
> >
> > Jim T.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >My point is that by picturing
> > >the integrity of a mountain, and what kind of change threatens its
> > >ecosystems, we can take positive steps to prevent its commercialization
> > and
> > >denuding of trees, for example.
> > >
> > >         I don't think the metaphor stands up to the deconstructive
> > critique
> > >you offer, but then it really doesn't have to. It's best function is to
> > help
> > >humans realize that we need those mountains to do their own work, not
as
> > ski
> > >slopes, resorts, or tree farms.
> > >-Tc
> > >Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> > >Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> > >Department of English
> > >University of Houston-Downtown
> > >One Main Street
> > >Houston, TX 77002-0001
> > >713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
> > >"Question Reality"
> > >
> > >  > ----------
> >