A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION (original) (raw)

FOREWARD The fifth anniversary of founding the Institute of Ecology and Bioethics at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, which was celebrated in 2007, provided a good opportunity for recapitulating on the didactic activities and the research carried out by the members of this Institute, as well as advancing reflections on what lay at the basis of its origins. They reach back to the existence of a field of studies called “The Ecology of Man and Bioethics” which was first introduced at the Faculty of Christian Philosophy in the year 1984/1985. The decision to link ecology with bioethics was then prompted by two factors. The first of them was the awareness of a common source of problems arising in ecology and bioethics; this source was the possibility of human interventions both in nature and the biology of man himself, intensified and aggravated by technological and scientific advancement. The rise of such possibilities was accompanied by the growth and increasingly complicated character of new, specifically human problems. Their solution was not possible without a new and deepened reflection on the concepts of man, nature and man’s relation to nature. The theoretical resources of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy were already then predisposed for undertaking and carrying out such a consideration. And this was the other reason for introducing this new field, despite the fact that we still had no possibilities of conducting empirical ecological research or any clinical base for bioethical analyses. However, we did have at our disposal the possibility of theoretical reflections concerning the foundations of ecology and bioethics. The establishment of the Institute of Ecology and Bioethics not only did not lessen the force of these inspirations, but instead ostensibly added to their importance. The possibility of conducting empirical research, which was created in the Institute, constituted an additional challenge for humanist reflections on widely understood ecological issues. The range of research and the organisational structure of the Institute reflects the effort undertaken there which aims at a parallel, or even complementary approaches, which are both empirical and humanist, to contemporary ecological problems. We thus express a conviction that the problems which arise in the course of the ecological crisis are a challenge not only for various specialists in the sphere of natural sciences, but also for political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and theologians. The experience gathered in this field over the last 20 years, validates the claim that the number of scientific disciplines engaged in overcoming the ecological crisis constitutes a real measure of its complexity. And although it is difficult to pass any judgements today on the efficiency of the collaboration of such different disciplines of human knowledge, it can certainly be said that such a crisis cannot be solved by technological means only. The scope of research and the structure of the Institute responds to the challenges arising in modern European culture, which was significantly influenced by the mathematically-oriented natural sciences initiated by Galio Galilei. It is a divided, two-way culture or even – as C.P Snow would have said – these are two cultures; one embraces the heritage of mathematically-oriented natural sciences, while on the other hand, we have the heritage of the humanities. In the conditions of such a split, a peculiar role is assigned to the individuals and institutions who undertake the effort of wisdom-based mediation between the natural sciences and humanities. The effect of this mediation should be a departure from culture inequitably dominated by the natural sciences, but without any hostility towards the latter. The issue at stake is rather a reconciliation of science with wisdom, that, within one culture, includes both traditions: the one rooted in the humanities as well as the one deriving from the natural sciences. The basic inspirations of the Institute of Ecology and Bioethics at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University are fully articulated in the present volume, including works both in the field of the natural sciences as well as the humanities. In particular, they address the problem of a theological dimension of protecting the natural environment, the ecological aesthetics of nature, cultural ecology, the methodology of ecology, ecotoxicology, the environmental conditions of health, pollution of the natural environment, the management of the natural environment, and the legal aspects of renewable energy.