Cultivated relationality: a cross-cultural philosophical dialogue on anthropocentrism in environmental education

Abstract

Environmental Education (EE) continues to grapple with anthropocentric assumptions that reduce nature to a resource domain, despite decades of advocacy for holistic, relational approaches. Michael Bonnett’s phenomenological critique offers a powerful Western philosophical challenge to this tendency, yet remains situated within the lineage of Western phenomenology. This article addresses a significant gap in EE research by undertaking a genuinely dialogical cross-cultural philosophical comparison. It reads Bonnett’s phenomenology alongside Daoist concepts of ziran 自然 (spontaneous self-so-ness) and wuwei 无为 (non-impositional action), and Confucian relational cosmology centered on tianren heyi 天人合一 (harmonious unity of Heaven and humanity). Employing comparative philosophical methodology grounded in dialogical hermeneutics, the analysis engages classical Chinese texts through established scholarly translations as equally rigorous philosophical partners rather than additive supplements. The traditions converge significantly in rejecting instrumentalism and the sufficiency of techno-scientific frameworks. However, they diverge productively on the ontology of the subject: Bonnett emphasizes individual authentic encounter with nature as transcendent other, while Daoist-Confucian thought proposes that there is no primary relationship to be achieved with an external nature; rather, a disposition of harmonious participation is to be cultivated within an always-already relational field through communal, intergenerational transmission. The concept of ‘cultivated relationality’ emerges as a complementary pedagogical framework, illustrated through a worked example of China’s green community initiatives operating within the state-led Ecological Civilization policy. The paper moves EE beyond additive multiculturalism toward genuinely dialogical philosophy capable of under girding more pluralistic, contextually sensitive pedagogy for addressing global ecological crises.