Abstract

The idea of perceiving the essence of ecophilosophy as a discipline fundamentally oriented at and connected with the outlook on life is subjected to criticism in the paper. It is indicated – with reference to the book by Konrad Waloszczyk, entitled: Ecological Crisis in the Light of Ecophilosophy – that such an attitude seems to ignore certain assumptions that must be followed in the course of formulating premise to this kind of subject-matter. A convincing argument for understanding the status of ecophilosophy is this way is the question of an ecological crisis. It cannot be viewed as a purely philosophical concept, because its sense is determined by means of scientific regulations, and not premise based on outlook on life. The critical analysis presented in the paper also shows that establishing a new discipline, in this case: ecophilosophy (including some of the concepts related to it, e.g. ecological crisis) requires fulfilling certain research standards, both content-related and methodological. Following such requirements in the attempts to formulate the subject-matter of ecophilosophy, or even in an introductory dispute over the essence of philosophy oriented at environmental problems, is not an easy task. The author of the paper is not able to purpose even a preliminary outline of such a branch of philosophical studies at the moment. It is in the first place caused by the fact that it seems impossible to connect selected problems from such specialized fields of science as biology, economics, demography, sociology or ethics – to mention just a few, most important ones – in a coherent and integrated way.