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Chapters by Tom Greaves

ROAR, 2019

A conversation about the value of nature, capitalism, film, time and the film 'The Flaming Rage o... more A conversation about the value of nature, capitalism, film, time and the film 'The Flaming Rage of the Sea'.

Chapter 3 'Natural Phenomena: The Birth and Growth of Experience'

Papers by Tom Greaves

Environmental Values, 2020

As I write people around the world are tentatively emerging from enforced hibernation. Many are s... more As I write people around the world are tentatively emerging from enforced hibernation. Many are seeking to reconnect with the natural world. Crowds of visitors to beaches and national parks have caused huge littering problems (Laville, 2020). Experience of nature beckons, up close and personal, at a time when we are supposed to keep our distance from other people. Of course, nature didn't altogether disappear while we were indoors. Some species, including orcas, cuckoos and peregrine falcons, seem to have thrived whilst our activities were put on hold (Morris, 2020). On the other hand, some of our activities, such as the management of rare meadows, were directed at helping nature to recover from the onslaught (Davies, 2020).

Environmental Values, 2019

The key role that animals play in our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world has only gradua... more The key role that animals play in our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world has only gradually been highlighted in discussions in environmental aesthet- ics. In this article I make use of the phenomenological notion of ‘perceptual sense’ as developed by Merleau-Ponty to argue that open-ended expressive- responsive movement is the primary aesthetic ground for our appreciation of animals. It is through their movement that the array of qualities we admire in animals are manifest qua animal qualities. Against functionalist and formalist accounts, I defend and develop an account of expressive-responsive movement as the primary perceptual sense of animals. I go on to suggest that the primacy of movement in the aesthetic appreciation of animals is also the primary sense of animal ‘wildness’, and that a key part of the rewilding paradigm should be the development of such appreciation.

Environmental Ethics, 2015

Distinguishing between the source and the locus of value enables environmental philosophers to co... more Distinguishing between the source and the locus of value enables environmental philosophers to consider not only what is of value, but also to try to develop a conception of valuation that is itself ecological. Such a conception must address difficulties caused by the original locational metaphors in which the distinction is framed. This is done by reassessing two frequently employed models of valuation, perception and desire, and going on to show that a more adequate ecological understanding of valuation emerges when these models are fully contextualized in the intersecting life worlds of the ecological community. Ecological evaluation takes place in ongoing encounters between these worlds and a crucial part in this process is assigned to living beings that are "open-endedly open," that is, open not only to what the world affords them and others, but open to an indefinite field of possible valuational encounters between all kinds of beings. Ecological valuation overcomes some of the conceptual failings of contemporary attempts to evaluate nature: "The Economics of Ecology and Biodiversity" and "Valuing Nature."

I offer a response and counter argument to J. Baird Callicott's "Provocations" piece in Environme... more I offer a response and counter argument to J. Baird Callicott's "Provocations" piece in Environmental Humanities, volume 2. I argue that the historical narrative that Callicott derives from Aristotle regarding the development of philosophical thought from natural philosophy to social and moral concerns, is not the best way to conceive of the project of the Presocratics. Nor does this narrative offer us the best way to conceive of the distinctive tasks of the environmental arts (a term which I argue is to be preferred to the environmental humanities) and their relation to the sciences. I offer a different model, inspired by the Heraclitean notion of unity in opposition, which conceives the task of the arts as the common articulation of our myriad ways of being in the world and the task of the various sciences as the exploration of the world that is manifest in and through those ways of being. This model allows us to see how we might aim towards unity in opposition rather than a fusion of the two cultures. On this basis I make some proposals concerning the long-term and more immediate institutional and pedagogical consequences of this view and reflect upon the challenges facing my teaching on the UEA Master's in Environmental Sciences and Humanities.