| The subject of this dissertation is the problem of boundaries of self and nature. Self conceptions have considerable effect on the beliefs activities and kinds of future of humans and their environment can have. Self-conceptions I argue, form the lens through which the activities goals and hopes of human beings are focused. A variety of negative consequences have arisen as a result of the dualistic and "selfish" conceptions of the self held in the West. I argue that the consequences of some activities formed under the conceptions of modern pragmatism offer a transactional model of conceptions of self are on the way to forming a self that is ecological.;Western selves, influenced by Descartes and others, diminish human experience and environment. Human "selves" are natural and historical, they are interested participants in finding out what "works." Closer identification through the development of new pragmatically conceived "habits" of "selves" will allow for the overcoming of the practice of framing nature as "other." The problem is that the relation of the forms of self-conceptions, radical individualism, self interest, etc. stressed in modern Western experience creates divisive and misguided relationships to the natural world and has placed the environment-self in danger. Particular problems arise in the dualistic modern formulations of self/nature, reason/emotion, and self/other that are reflexively damaging to both.;My argument then is that the pragmatists succeeded in criticizing the dualistic Cartesian self. They developed a concept of self as transactional, historical, and situated. The pragmatists I argue, offer a relational self that is useful toward developing an ecological self. I argue that Buddhist conceptions and practices can usefully direct and engage the pragmatic self, supplementing it to grow into a fuller self, an ecological self.;Ecological conceptions of self, involving ethics, imagination and creativity, can deeply alter destructive dualistic patterns in thinking and behavior, strengthen human identification with the natural, and critically question our relationships in order to grow out of the present mindless non sustainable control and destruction of selves-environment. |
