science

OpenAirPhilosophy

OpenAirPhilosophy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand OpenAirPhilosophy rather than just read about it. In short: OpenAirPhilosophy is a project presenting a selection of the work in environmental philosophy of Norwegian philosophers Arne Naess, Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng, and Peter Wessel Zapffe. The project promotes the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, as well as looking at restructuring modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.

Key takeaways

OpenAirPhilosophy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect OpenAirPhilosophy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of OpenAirPhilosophy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

OpenAirPhilosophy is a project presenting a selection of the work in environmental philosophy of Norwegian philosophers Arne Naess, Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng, and Peter Wessel Zapffe. The project promotes the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, as well as looking at restructuring modern human societies in accordance with such ideas. The project's website holds biographies, selected works and interviews of the three philosophers. The name of the project comes from a practice in Norway called friluftsliv, which translates as “open-air life.” The term evokes a sense of belonging to the land, making friends with free nature. Arne Naess, the father of “Deep ecology", was always searching for the existence of what he called “greatness other than human.” Far from moralizing about how other people ought to live, he would invite them to “act beautifully," and to experience how natural it feels to act in ecologically responsible ways. When Naess was asked about his expectations for the future, he would sometimes answer, to the surprise of his interviewers, "I am a pessimist for the 21st century, but an optimist for the 22nd century." This response exemplifies the kind of against-the-grain thinking of the three Norwegian ecophilosophers whose work that is presented at OpenAirPhilosophy: Peter Wessel Zapffe, Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng, and Arne Naess. All demonstrated a surprising ability both to identify and to face directly the vastness of the ecological crisis as it was starting to unfold in their times. Their analysis, however, did not stop at making a dire diagnosis; they also chose to develop and embrace a deeper and more long-term view in which we humans are not automatically assigned centre stage in the pageant of life. Despite writing forthrightly about the grave challenges facing the Earth, each retained a parallel sense of living life to the full, of enjoying the conviviality of being among friends and the fulfilment that comes from working for change - all fueled by experiences in nature. The aim of the project is to engage readers, provoke additional scholarship, and expand the community of activists around the globe who embrace ecocentrism - a worldview in which all life is acknowledged to have intrinsic value. Content editors for this project are Jan van Boeckel and Ceciel Verheij. Ceciel Verheij translated several Norwegian texts which are published for the first time in English on this website. Andrés Stubelt and Cara Nelson/Swift Trek Media provided web design and development. PDF design and typesetting are by Kevin Cross. Tom Butler of Tompkins Conservation served as overall project director.

References

External links Rewilding website, link to podcast episode with Jan Van Boeckel

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with OpenAirPhilosophy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what OpenAirPhilosophy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to OpenAirPhilosophy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about OpenAirPhilosophy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of OpenAirPhilosophy

In research: OpenAirPhilosophy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses OpenAirPhilosophy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: OpenAirPhilosophy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Environmental philosophy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for OpenAirPhilosophy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study OpenAirPhilosophy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what OpenAirPhilosophy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain OpenAirPhilosophy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is OpenAirPhilosophy in simple terms?

Why does OpenAirPhilosophy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study OpenAirPhilosophy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on OpenAirPhilosophy.