Foster’s Ecological Philosophy Research

John Bellamy Foster is the famous representatives of Ecological Marxism inAmerican，To study his ecological philosophy for us to solve the ecologicalproblems in today’s society is of great significance. This article attempts to clarifyFoster’s ecological philosophy thought from the following four aspects：The first，clarifying the fact that Foster’s ecological philosophy thought hassystemized and rebuilt the related thoughts in Marx’s historical materialism. Marx’shistorical materialism is the most important thinking resource of Foster’s ecologicalphilosophy，and also the theoretical principle of Foster’s most revolutionary concept—ecology-socialism. So the premise of deeply researching Foster’s ecologicalphilosophy thought is researching the inheritance relation between Foster’secological philosophy thought and Marx’s historical materialism and how it works.The second，the interpretation of the main contents of Foster’s ecologicalphilosophy, including their definition of the ecological crisis, the analysis of theroot cause of the ecological crisis and exploration of the path for solvingecological problems. From Foster’s view, only through a thorough change in thefundamental concept of institutional change can human beings truly solve existingenvironmental problems fundamentally and eventually achieve harmoniousdevelopment between man and nature.The third, explaining theoretical contribution of Foster’s Ecological Philosophy.Foster tried to highly inherit Marx principled critique of capitalism in the study ofecological issues on the principle of his theory, which is different from traditionalstrict environmental economics and technological determinism. He draws on theanalysis of the historical materialism of Marx relationship between man and nature,grasping the ecological problems from a simple problem into a problem ofrebuilding the relationship between man and nature. Along the path of Marx’s ideas, he tries to understand the relationship between man and nature on the new basis ofexistence, and rebuild relations on the basis of the social revolution, thus pointingout the direction of fundamental solution of ecological problems.The last，interpreting the limitations of Foster’s ecological philosophy thought.Though Foster points out his ecology-socialism following Marx’s social revolutionthought，it is ambiguous that how this conception can come into reality rooted inhistorical inevitability. As the demonstration on this point has not be clarified yet，Foster’s most revolutionary concept—ecology-socialism inevitably has the qualityof subjective philosophy and the characteristic of a kind of Utopia.On the foundation of clarifying Foster’s ecological philosophy thoughtroundly，this article also aims at combining the theory with the reality and thenexplaining which part of Foster’s ecological philosophy thought can be used by ourcountry in the aspect of the exchange in the pattern of economic development andthe construction of socialistic conservation culture，and meanwhile it can providesome reference and revelation.