Jorge Francisco Aguirre Sala

Hermeneutics and Field Environmental Philosophy: Integrating Ecological Sciences and Ethics into Earth Stewardship

Integrating Earth Stewardship with Field Environmental Philosophy (FEP) addresses two major challenges. The first is to ensure that the economic view of land administration is self-limiting to make it compatible with Earth stewardship. The second is to link Latin American conceptual and methodological approaches to international initiatives. Toward these aims, this essay shows the contribution that hermeneutics provides to FEP and its integration of ecological sciences and ethics. The focus is the theoretical framework of the FEP methodological approach developed by Ricardo Rozzi and his students at the Chilean Network of Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER-Chile), and the integration of FEP’s methodology to the International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network. The contributions of hermeneutics to FEP are shown by discussing the translations of the meanings of key concepts such as “Earth” or “soil” and the holistic concepts of “environment” or “biosphere.” The biophysical and symbolic-linguistic domains of these concepts are linked through these translations. The route to achieve this is to: (1) establish the need for a methodology that links contrasting economic, ecological, and ethical views of the Earth; (2) identify the role that FEP plays in the theoretical framework and the development of a methodological approach to integrate ecology and ethics; (3) introduce the hermeneutical steps supportive of the FEP methodology; and (4) illustrate the FEP and other Latin American transdisciplinary initiatives that can contribute to the integration of ethics and ecology in the ILTER network and the Earth Stewardship initiative.