Historical and philosophical aspects of the development of ecological knowledge

Abstract

The article considers the problem of interaction between man and nature in the retrospective in order to study the content aspect of ecological knowledge in the Modern Era. The urgency of the research is due to the need for the historical and philosophical understanding of ecological knowledge, the basis of which should be understanding of nature as the highest value of life. It is shown that during the Modern Era the development of ecological knowledge can be characterized by the mechanistic representation of nature, the possibilities of its taming and by the unlimited consumption of natural resources by man, that was studied by I. Newton, F. Bacon, R. Descartes, I. Kant, G. Hegel, L. Feuerbach and others in their works. Ecological knowledge was developed on the basis of the study of the interaction between man and nature. Thus, nature and society are in a complex relationship, the basis of which is practice, and its component – cognitive and manufacturing activities of man. In view of this, nature was regarded as an object of production, and ecological knowledge was regarded as knowledge of how to dispose of nature in favor of society. In contrast, the new definition of ecological knowledge based on the principle of ecovitalism, i.e. the absolute value of life, should focus on the preservation and restoration of nature in the process of human activity and become a new basis of ecological education. At the same time, the new social, economic, political, and cultural situation of the Ukrainian society is characterized by a number of ideological and methodological issues related to ecological knowledge in the educational process, environmental threats, etc. All of them need a thorough philosophical study, and this is the task of the philosophy of education itself.