Abstract
This chapter demonstrates the significant convergence of methods, concerns, and commitments between environmental aesthetics and eco-phenomenology. Those commitments include cultivating radical openness to natural phenomena and the negotiation of an inherent tension between the original presentation of those phenomena and reflection on their meaning. The works of Ronald Hepburn and Arnold Berleant are taken as case studies showing this historical and methodological convergence. The chapter then discusses some important themes for contemporary eco-phenomenological aesthetics: the relationship between art and nature; the beauty of animals; the elemental, ephemeral events; and the breakdown of experience of nature. The chapter ends with some reflections on the importance of phenomenology as a critical method for environmental aesthetics.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Routledge Handbook of Nature and Environmental Aesthetics |
| Editors | Glenn Parsons, Ned Hettinger, Sandra Shapshay |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
| Chapter | 11 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781032298221 |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2025 |