Studying humankind’s relationship to the earth involves broad and deep questions for students as today’s educators explore changing teaching methods. This article highlights benefits of a multidisciplinary approach to environmental education, drawing upon ancient natural philosophy as a coherent conceptual resource. The Greek philosopher Plotinus is introduced to show the application of ancient natural philosophy across all fields and on all levels of knowledge under a common banner. The significance of ancient natural philosophy is its conception of overall unity. This is the key. Unity is implicit in interrelationships between parts to whole on all levels of existence. From such a perspective, all life forms and other entities in the natural world can be understood as interrelated — just as James Lovelock demonstrated in describing the homeostatic state of natural processes on earth. On a similar reasoning, the diversity in people, societies and places can be appreciated physically and sociologically as belonging to one world. Several studies are cited to explore this overlap between ancient natural philosophy and honouring the connection and dependence of humanity on the fragility of the earth’s ecosystem.

中文翻译：

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古代自然哲学：环境教育的资源

随着当今教育工作者探索不断变化的教学方法，研究人类与地球的关系涉及学生面临的广泛而深刻的问题。本文强调了环境教育的多学科方法的好处，将古代自然哲学作为一种连贯的概念资源。介绍希腊哲学家普罗提诺是为了展示古代自然哲学在一个共同旗帜下在所有领域和所有知识水平上的应用。古代自然哲学的意义在于其整体统一的观念。这是关键。统一性隐含在存在的各个层面上部分与整体之间的相互关系中。从这样的角度来看，自然界中的所有生命形式和其他实体都可以被理解为相互关联的——正如詹姆斯·洛夫洛克在描述稳态的地球上自然过程的状态。基于类似的推理，人们、社会和地方的多样性可以在物理和社会学上被理解为属于一个世界。引用了几项研究来探索古代自然哲学与尊重人类对地球生态系统脆弱性的联系和依赖之间的这种重叠。