Dualism, Ecology, Environment

Traditional Soul-Body Dualism also entails the segregation of Soul from Nature in general, the influence of which continues even where the former principle is explicitly abandoned.  For example, it is implicit in Spinoza's characterization of a human as an "atom" in Nature, in II, 8 of the Political Treatise, since 'atom' connotes independent existence, whereas a human is essentially related to the Nature on which it depends for food, oxygen, water, etc.  Likewise, the contemporary use of the term 'the Environment' to indicate something over and against humans hypostasizes and abstracts from the concept of Ecology, in which the Human-Environment relation is one of essential interaction.  This vestigial Dualism undercuts a potential Ecological application of a fundamental principle of Spinoza's--that practices that damage 'the Environment' also threaten the continued existence of the species, an application the indifference to which by some is regularly in evidence.