The Phenomenology of Nature and the Ēthos (ηθoζ) of Earthly Dwelling in Jardine and Bonnett: Ecopedagogy, Transcendence, and the Post-Humanist Integrated Curriculum-of-life (Curriculum Vitae)

Abstract

In this final chapter I move in a different, but related, direction to further the contemporary discussion concerning the fate of the earth as it is bound inextricably with the future of curriculum and education by analyzing the phenomenological ontology of curriculum theorist David Jardine and philosopher of education Michael Bonnett. Both thinkers have contributed monumentally to the philosophy of what I cautiously term the phenomenological-ontology of deep ecology, or, as Thomson (2009) refers to it, “eco-phenomenology” (445). I am concerned with understanding and drawing out for the reader the intimate, primordial relationship between the human being and nature/Earth, which is already a deep pedagogical phenomenon wherein learning and teaching arise and transpire by means of the ever-evolving “conversation” that humans have and have always had with nature as “self-arising” phenomenon.