CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL HERMENEUTICS

Local, national, and international conflicts over the use of forests b etween logging companies, governments, environmentalists, native peopl es, local residents, recreationalists, and others-e.g., the controvers y over the spotted owl in the old-growth forests of the Northwestern U nited States and over the rain forests in South America-have shown the need for philosophical reflection to help clarify the basic issues in volved. Joining other philosophers who are addressing this problem, my own response takes the form of a sketch of the rough outlines of a cr itical environmental hermeneutics. I apply hermeneutics, narrative the ory, and critical theory to environmental ethics, and use this hermene utical theory as a method to illuminate the ''deep'' underlying issues relating to the perception and use of forests. In applying this metho d, I first take up the analytical problem of identifying, clarifying, and ordering the different interpretive narratives about forests in te rms of the underlying epistemological, ethical, and political issues i nvolved. I then address the critical problem of deciding conflicts bet ween these different interpretations of forests by working out a set o f legitimation criteria to which all parties concerned would ideally b e able to subscribe.