James Connelly

Politics and the environment : from theory to practice

Introduction Part 1: Environmental Thought and Political Action 1. Environmental Philosophy 2. Green Ideology 3. Environmental Movements Part 2: The Background to Environmental Policy Making 4. Rationality and Power in Environmental Decision Making 5. Choosing the Means 6. Valuation of the Environment Part 3: Multi-Level Environmental Governance: Global to Local 7. Greening Global Governance 8. European Integration 9. Constructing the Green State 10. Local Democracy and Local Authorities. Conclusion

Does Double Loop Learning Create Reliable Knowledge

This paper addresses doubts concerning the reliability of knowledge being created by double loop learning processes. Poppers ontological worlds are used to explore the philosophical basis of the way that individual experiences are turned into organisational knowledge, and such knowledge is used to generate organisational learning. The paper suggests that double loop learning may frequently create mistakes and fail to detect possible interesting lines of thought. Poppers work is used to suggest some solutions and an elaboration of the double loop learning process, but ultimately effective organisational learning is shown to depend on the undertaking of an epistemological burden by individuals above and beyond what is usually explicated in prescriptions for learning organisation and knowledge management.

The Meaning of Intention and Meaning in Mark Bevir and Vivienne Brown

Bevirs weak intentionalism construes meanings consisting in the understanding of a specific individual and they are identifiable solely by reference to that individual, by contrast with strong intentionalism, whereby a text expresses prior purposes of the author and a text has meaning only by virtue of the determining will of its author, so that to understand what a text says, we must recover what its author meant. Bevirs approach is to focus on what is actually written, on the product of the act of expression, rather than on what an author might have antecedently said (or somehow otherwise stated) they would write. A third possibility is to reject intentions altogether, and the paper explores the debate between Bevir and Brown over whether any theory of intentionality can be coherent.

Patrolling the Boundaries of Politics: Collingwood, Political Analysis and Political Action

Debates over whether a certain thing is (or ought to be) construed as ‘political’ are frequent and frequently interminable. This article argues that approaches to the proper understanding, scope and application of political concepts should recognise that they are both normative and contestable and also that, because they are employed by both theorist and theorised, they can never be sharply defined. It is argued that many debates achieve no theoretical closure because the terms of discussion are confined by a certain understanding of concepts as empirical and classificatory. This article examines these issues by using the work of R.G. Collingwood to suggest that conceptual overlap is inevitable and also that the theoretical analysis of politics should distinguish between the empirical and the theoretical phase of the concept. Philosophically, politics is not a separate sphere of activity but a dimension of all activity, and the correct way to understand politics is to understand it as activity, not as substance. For certain empirical purposes we categorise some things as political and others as non-political, but in doing so we should be careful whether we are doing so philosophically, historically or through stipulative definition. This article does not seek to cover all ramifications of the debate or its later literature, but to suggest that Collingwoods approach has something to contribute to the analysis of political concepts.

The public interest environmental law group: from USA to Europe

ABSTRACT The European environmental movement has been reconfigured since the introduction of the pan-European public interest environmental law group based on the model founded in the USA around 1970. Yet it has been claimed that there is a low degree of success in transplanting legal practices from one national space to another. Examination of the successful transplantation of a US legal model to the European context by the law group ClientEarth shows both that this claim is false and why it is false.

Language, aesthetics and emotions in the work of the British idealists

ABSTRACT This article surveys and contextualizes the British idealists’ philosophical writings on language, aesthetics and emotions, starting with T. H. Green and concluding with Michael Oakeshott. It highlights ways in which their philosophical insights have been wrongly overlooked by later writers. It explores R. L. Nettleship’s posthumous publications in this field and notes that they exerted significant influences on British idealists and closely related figures, such as Bernard Bosanquet and R. G. Collingwood. The writing of other figures are also explored, not least F. H. Bradley and J. A. Smith. The article concludes by introducing in turn the remaining articles that are found in this special issue.

The composition of R. G. Collingwood's The New Leviathan

ABSTRACT Collingwoods The New Leviathan is a difficult text. It comprises philosophy, political theory, political opinion and history in what is sometimes an uneasy amalgam. Despite its being the culmination of thirty years of work in ethics and political theory, the final text was clearly affected by the adverse circumstances under which it was written, these largely being Collingwoods illness which increasingly affected his ability to work as the writing of The New Leviathan progressed. This paper seeks to disentangle the composition of the book thereby shedding light on its distinctive character as the last substantial piece of philosophical work published in Collingwoods lifetime.

Collingwoodian Reflections on the Biographical Self

Does biography require a particular conception of the self? A biographer needs a sense of the subject’s self-understanding and projects and needs to avoid one-sided interpretation of their later self in the light of their earlier self; in autobiography the problem tends to be reversed. The subject of a biography has created a self; the biographer has to posit a self with projects, hopes and self-understanding. In biography there is a danger of assuming a determinate individual self rather than a social self in dialectical relation with society. Finally, we consider how far we can employ the notion of character to explain actions and consider the question of the validity of attributing ‘character’ to an agent in explaining intention, motive or action.

Idealism, the Common Good, and Environmental Virtues

This chapter considers the limits of state action in supporting and promoting environmental virtues. It is both a contribution to the contemporary discussion and a debate on environmental citizenship. This chapter is also an attempt to locate the roots of a viable conception of environmental citizenship in the work of some of the British Idealists of the 19th and 20th centuries. To some extent I am following in the footsteps of those like John Rodman who saw potential in the application of T.H. Green’s ideas to green philosophy and practice (Rodman, 1973, 1983). In what follows, I write in a certain spirit rather than engaging in any form of critical exegesis, let alone comprehensive coverage of the work of the Idealists. Rodman took the view that one of the approaches to environmental ethics and politics lay in pursuing moral extensionism. For him, this view meant applying Green’s views to contemporary environmental concerns through a denial of Green’s overstated separation between humans and animals and the natural world, and the associated view of rights (which also led David Ritchie to deny the possibility of animal rights). However, it is not necessary to promote rights for nature and animals to argue that, as environmental citizens, we might freely assume duties and exercise associated virtues in pursuit of environmental goals. The conception of citizenship I sketch below is accordingly an ethical and activist one, with the duties and responsibilities of citizens at the fore.

The Hesitant Hegelian: Collingwood, Hegel, and Inter-war Oxford

It was only ever with great reluctance that R.G. Collingwood accepted any philosophical label, whether ‘idealist’ or ‘Hegelian’: he always preferred to think of himself as beating his own philosophical path. This paper examines his relationship with the legacy of Hegel as mediated by the British Hegelians and the Italian idealists and suggests that An Essay on Philosophical Method marks the point at which his struggle to come to terms with legacy in the form of a reasoned statement of his own philosophical method and principles was resolved.