Naess, Arne (1912–)

Arne naess, known as the father of deep ecology, is a Norwegian ecophilosopher, naturalist, environmental activist, and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Oslo. He is the founder of Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy and the Social Sciences and the author of more than 30 books. Deep ecology, the movement Naess is credited with founding, critiques mainstream environmentalism and proposes a set of new metaphysical, ecological, spiritual, and sociopolitical alternatives.

Naess's conference paper “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement,” given in Bucharest in 1972, was the first recognized formulation of the principles of deep ecology. This paper rejected the idea of the separation of humans and nature in favor of a “relational, total field” image of nature based on “biospherical egalitarianism” ...