Abstract
During the last two and a half decades, philosophical interest in the aesthetics of nature and environment has been gained momentum. One of the most coherent theories in this arena of debate has been developed over a series of articles by Allen Carlson. The purpose of this paper is to examine Carlson's theory critically and suggest an alternative aspect that remains untouched by his model. Briefly stated, Carlson's view of the appreciation of nature is that it is a matter of under standing nature under suitable scientific categories. His argument, based on the objectivist epistemology, is basically a disjunctive syllogism : a) The concept of appreciation, derived from traditional disinterestedness and Stolnitz's aesthetic attitude, provides an insight into the explanation of aesthetic appreciation of nature, and is objectivistic in the light of its object-oriented character. b) Nature must be appreciated as nature itself, and the natural environmental model is the appropriate loci of our nature appreciation. c) The paradigmatic form of our nature appreciation is order appreciation. d) There can be a correct and objective aesthetic judgment of nature, and the sources of guiding categories pertinent to it is natural science and natural history. In regarding nature as an environment and as natural, his natural environmental model is meaningful. Nevertheless, his stance results in some serious problems : a) The natural environmental model excludes certain very common appreciative responses to nature-responses of a less intellective, more visceral sort. Therefore, the arousal model with appropriate emotions might be one of our characteristic forms of nature appreciation. b) Even if we consider the scientific knowledge as an objective source of our nature appreciation, this gives rise to the question of whether the natural science can be objective or not. Is there an objectivist aesthetic appreciation of nature\ Does aesthetic appreciation of nature need to be science-based\