Michael Zimmerman

Michael Zimmerman is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. He is also a Professor of Philosophy, as well as Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry in Tulane Medical School. Michael Zimmerman and Sean Esbjorn-Hargens have co-authored a book called Integral Ecology, now available from Integral Books/Shambhala.

Michael Zimmerman is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. He is also a Professor of Philosophy, as well as Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry in Tulane Medical School.

In the late 1970s, Zimmerman began publishing essays on environmental philosophy, and in 1983 wrote the first essay interpreting Martin Heidegger as a forerunner of Deep Ecology. In 1981, Zimmerman offered one of the first courses on environmental philosophy ever taught in the United States. During this period, he worked closely with George Sessions, one of the leading figures in the Deep Ecology Movement.

Encountering Ken Wilber's book Up From Eden in the mid-1980s was a conceptual turning point that enabled Zimmerman to appreciate the noble aspects of modernity, as well as its dark side, including Western humanity’s tendency to dissociate itself from and to dominate the biosphere. In 1987, disclosures about the depth of Heidegger’s relationship with National Socialism led Zimmerman to rethink not only Heidegger's thought (in Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity, 1990), but Deep Ecology as well (Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity, 1994). Wilber’s Integral Theory, especially in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality and A Brief History of Everything, proved particularly helpful to Zimmerman in sorting out the promise and pitfalls of contemporary environmentalism. He uses these books in college courses.

In 1990, Zimmerman asked four leading eco-philosophers (J. Baird Callicott, John Clark, George Sessions, and Karen J. Warren) to join with him to publish one of the first anthologies on environmental philosophy, which will appear this summer in its fourth edition.

Michael Zimmerman and Sean Esbjorn-Hargens have co-authored a book called Integral Ecology, now available from Integral Books/Shambhala.