Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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concern about the effects of human activities on the natural environment. The most glaring fact to be noted in this connection is the horrible incidence of pollution of air, water and other natural resources, and also the phenomenon called-global warming. So it is rightly warned that the continued pollution of the earth, if unchecked, will eventually destroy the fitness of this planet as a place for humanlife. Conceptual Environment
Man lives in two environments viz. the external physical environment., which includes living ecological factors like plants and animals, and the conceptual environment, consisting of man's view of the universe and his attitude towards it. The latter includes man's universe of his desires and aspirations. One may for instance have purely commercial and exploitative orientation towards nature, while a few others may have reverential attitude towards it. It is these attitudes which motivate man to do certain activities which affect both man and the environment. So these attitudes make a vast difference in man's relationship to others and his surroundings.
Man is not a passive being subject only to the principles of physics, chemistry and Darwinian natural selection. He has been resisting environmental pressures for the last several millennia. As a creator, he has been making tremendous progress in scientific knowledge and technological know-how. At present, man has not remained a helpless victim of the original environment. Strangely but surely, he has become, so to say, a victim of his own scientific and especially technological achievements and innovations. The human conquest of Nature appears to be moving in the direction of the abolition of man as man and the elimination of the very existence of the human beings from this planet. If he fails to pay heed to ecological problems and disasters, it is not to voice a pessimistic note of a prophet of the doom. But man will have to think over these issues sincerely and seriously. Besides, it is not enough to ponder over such problems merely from the standpoint of utilitarianism. Man will have to take a wider and philosophical perspective of his ecological niche in the universe. A Brief Story of Western Thought
Modem science and technology are mainly developed by Westerners. It was Francis Bacon, a great British populariser of science and scientific outlook, who made a pithy but a very meaningful statement: “Knowledge is power.” This sentence became a motto for those who aspired to conquer Nature. But Bacon has also gave a warning which was gradually forgotten. The Baconian warning is very realistic and rational. He had admonished: "Nature can be conquered only by obeying
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