He later amended the philosophy, and deep ecology became a collection of eight basic principles, which valued life in all forms, asserted that diversity is a value in itself and required those who agreed to work for change. Inspired by environmentalist Rachel Carson, Indian philosopher of nonviolence Mahatma Gandhi and metaphysician Baruch Spinoza, he argued that all living things have value independent of their usefulness to others, but he rejected the kind of individualism that leads to selfishness toward other beings and nature. He retired from his university job in 1970 and began examining humanity’s relationship with nature. In 1958, he founded an interdisciplinary journal of philosophy called Inquiry. He also wrote a manual to help activists who were involved in nonviolent protests. During the 1960s, he became involved in environmental activism and was once arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience at a waterfall where a dam was planned. He wrote many books on communication and was among the first to use statistical methods and questionnaires to survey philosophical beliefs.ĭuring World War II, he joined the Norwegian resistance and helped avert the shipment of students to German concentration camps. The next year, he became the university’s youngest professor and made the history of ideas a prerequisite for all academic specialties.Īn outdoorsman from a young age, he led the first expedition to conquer the 25,000-foot Pakistan mountain Tirich Mir in 1954 and led another Norwegian expedition up the mountain in 1964. 27, 1912, Arne Dekke Eide Naess did undergraduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris and graduate work at the University of Vienna, UC Berkeley and the University of Oslo, where he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1938. Naess urged deep ecologists to work with those who didn’t completely share their worldview, often noting “the frontier is long.”īorn in Oslo on Jan. A shallow ecologist would preserve the pond so his children have a place to swim and the watershed quality improves. For example, a deep ecologist would clean up a pond because plants and animals deserve a pristine habitat and the woods should be allowed to evolve at their own rate.

The Ecology of Wisdom by Arne Næss