Limits of sociology in
understanding landscape
Basic illustration
Landscape in humanities and
social sciences
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Cultural ecology
Social ecology
Cultural landscapes
(UNESCO CL heritage)
Symbols
Landscape as cultural construction in social sciences
Landscape as object of (interaction and dynamic)
art
Other…..
Methodological problem - Terms:
Pre- scientific
 no logical relationships between each other,
but contain experiences, people can
understand and imagine what is behind the
term – sharing experiences.
 Empirical, based on sharing experiences
expression of the world.
Terms..
Scientific
 no sharing experiences, but logical analytical
relationships to each other. Analytical,
formalized description of the world.
Landscape as…
Sociology ….interpretation… between literature
and science
Third culture…third science? (Wolf Lepenies,
1985)
 Landscape ► Inscape
 Lifescape
► Lifescape
 Inscape
► Landscape
Related to…
and to….
Place…landscape
Out of human exemptionalism to…
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Human exemptionalism Paradigm - HEP
Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP)
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belief in abundance and progress,
our devotion to growth and prosperity,
our faith in science and technology,
our commitment to a laissez-faire economy,
no-limited governmental planning and private property rights.
The HEP is "anti-ecological" and therefore damaging to the
environment.
In the 1978 William R. Catton and Riley E. Dunlap
…to ecology
New Environmental Paradigm (NEP)
 the inevitability of "limits to growth"
 the necessity of achieving a "steady-state" economy
 the importance of preserving the "balance of nature"
 the need to reject the anthropocentric notion that
nature exists solely for human use . . . a world view perhaps best captured by the "spaceship earth"
metaphor
In the 1978 William R. Catton and Riley E. Dunlap
12 - 15 items were designed to measure
the NEP
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Subjects were asked to rate each item (from
Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Mildly Agree,
Agree and Strongly Agree) / 5 items scale
15 items of NEP
by Riley E. Dunlap
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(1) We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support.
(2) Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs.
(3) Humans are severely abusing the environment.
(4) Human ingenuity will insure that we do NOT make the earth unlivable.
(5) When humans interfere with nature it often produces disastrous consequences.
(6) The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them.
(7) Plants and animals have as much right as humans to exist.
(8) The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern
industrial nations.
(9) Despite our special abilities, humans are still subject to the laws of nature.
(10) The so-called “ecological crisis” facing humankind has been greatly exaggerated.
(11) The earth is like a spaceship with limited room and resources.
(12) Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature.
(13) The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset.
(14) Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to control it.
(15) If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological
catastrophe.
Mixture of HEP and NEP
Limits of sociology in understanding
landscape
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Natural science tend to exclude human
behavior
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Sociological perspectives tend to exclude the
physical environment from their account of
social science
Limits…
The environment is not merely, exclusively
represented through social construction, in
language or symbolically
It is also the product of human activity
Limits…
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Beyond the position where nature is viewed as
either the material conditions of our existence
Or as no more than a set of culturally
generated symbols
Accept nature as both
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Ecological reality
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Social construction
Next lecture…
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Landscape Typology…in your readings
Green Man in Prague ….short trip
Next students oral presentation
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Interdisciplinary solution of ecological
problems
…..dreams, reality, theory or praxes?