A Study On John Cobb’s Constructive Postmodern Ecological Thought

The current ecological crisis is one of the most serious crises threatening humanity today. John Cobb is one of the most famous theologian and philosopher in the world, the representative of the third generation of process thought, the founder of eco-process theology, his ecological thought has great value to respond to this ecological crisis positively. To China, the biggest developing country, on the one hand Cobb’s ecological thought has a lot of echoes with Chinese traditional ecological wisdom; and on the other hand, his theories and practices about ecology are feasible to China and can inspire China to solve its ecological problem, to construct a sustainable civilization. This dissertation does a comprehensive study of Cobb’s ecological thought, focus both on theory and practice:as to ecological theories, it includes Cobb’s ecological theology, philosophy of ecology, ecological ethics etc.; as to ecological practices, it primarily discusses Cobb’s ecological economics, ecological agriculture and "arcology".Chapter two elucidates two phenomena:global warming and Ocean acidification. It clarifies the seriousness of ecological destruction caused by human activities, and well as points out that human being’s current response to ecological crisis is passive overall, and summarizes that our civilization is in danger.Chapter three focuses on Cobb’s ecological theories. It makes a brief introduction of Cobb’s life, and summarizes on the whole his intellectual trajectory. Then it mainly expatiates Cobb’s critical reflections on western philosophy, Christianity, science and technology. Cobb criticized the substantialism, dualism, anthropocentrism and individualism etc. in Western culture. Based on North Alfred Whitehead’s thought, Cobb used the ecological resources from the bible to construct creatively an ecological and postmodern Christianity. Cobb used Whitehead’s panexperientialism to justify the intrinsic value of the non-human world, the intrinsic value is one of the core idea of Cobb’s eco-process thought. Cobb’s ethics of Life especially has a strong resonance with the Chinese Confucian’s concept of’producing and reproducing’.Chapter four discusses Cobb’s practices of ecology. Cobb is a thinker who puts his theories into practice. His ecological practices provide us a promising alternative to construct an ecological civilization. They include ecological economics, ecological agriculture and arcology. The ecological economics criticized current economism particularly, which is oriented by unlimited growth of economy. It proposes global free trade, and only seeks the interests of minority people, ignoring the common good--especially the well-being of poor people and the Earth itself. Cobb proposes an economy for community, which is also referred to as a "steady-state" economy. An economy for community seeks the common good, includes the well-being of the non-human world, it is self-sufficient, decentralized, localized and ecologically sustainable. Cobb himself mainly learned from Dean Freudenberger’s organic agriculture and Wes Jackson’s permaculture, his thought of ecological agriculture criticized the industrial agriculture, agrobusiness, which destroys ecology, and the land in particular, causes oppression and ultimately goes against the best interests of the farmer, destroying the rural community. Cobb advocates a small family farm-based, organic and sustainable agriculture, which consumes as little as possible the fossil fuels and chemicals, and as a result is more healthly and causes minimum damage to ecology. Cobb’s ideas about arcology mainly stem from Paolo Soleri. The arcology combines ecological preservation with urban construction and urban lifestyle wonderfully. For China, a country with a large population and currently on its way to rapid urbanization, the ideas of arcology have great practical significance.Chapter five makes comparative studies of eco-process thought with eco-feminist, Confucian and Jurgen Moltmann respectively. It compares their similarities and differences so as to grape a more comprehensive picture of eco-process thought. Chapter six analyses controversies between deep ecology and eco-process thought, between Clare Palmer and Whiteheadian, and make comments on them. These help to clarify some core concepts and propositions of eco-process thought further. The conclusion section try to answer one question:"What should China learn from eco-process thought?" I believe, eco-process thought inosculates itself with natural science, which can help us to make up for the insufficience of natural science basis of traditional ecological wisdom; the disadvantages of western modernity are represented as dualism, anthropocentrism and individualism, while eco-process thought is a constructive postmodernism, it can help us to avoid the disadvantages of western modernity, and provide us a viable alternative for the construction of postmodern ecological civilization; eco-process thought is a comprehensive vision, it can help China to overcome our current discipline separation which widespread in education system and academic circle.