Introduction

Abstract

Environmental philosophers have had a great deal to say about nature as it has been conceived by scientists. They have had much to say about nature as it has been conceived by other philosophers. But they have had comparatively little to say about nature as we experience it in the living of our lives. In the following, I argue that this lack of attention to nature-as-experienced is a cause for regret, and not just for rhetorical reasons, not just because it makes the discipline of environmental philosophy seem disagreeably abstract and high-flown. I contend that this inattention to experience is a bad thing because environmental philosophy that fails to connect with our lived experience of nature is, more often than not, bad philosophy.