Introduction to John Visvader’s “Philosophy and Human Ecology”

Although much has changed since 1986, when John Visvader’s paper was originally published, his guidance is still wise and necessary for today’s reader. It is still tempting to pigeon-hole human ecology as a particular kind of study with distinctive methods. After all, we tend to allocate funds and prestige to interdisciplinary fields once they have adopted a clear paradigm and some defining achievements that serve as exemplars for future research and that contain the norms and concepts defining the field. Conservation biology and sustainability science have come into their own in just such a fashion. Professor Visvader warned us against interpreting human ecology as having an essence—a defining set of characteristics. He argued that given the complexity of socioecological systems, we should expect to find many different ways of studying their dynamics, with some being largely descriptive and others being highly value-laden. Following Wittgenstein, he suggested that these approaches share a range of family resemblances in virtue of which they are all ways of conducting human ecology. It follows that human ecology is more open-ended and inclusive than many interdisciplinary studies, which is both a curse (for those who crave clarity and consistent standards) and a blessing (for those whose curiosity is stimulated by new connections).