We are recognizing...

We are recognizing, at least implicitly, the possibility of being reasonable in an area where we do not expect absolute certainty, and we accept that human reason goes beyond the limits of science and technology, that reason is more deeply rooted in human life than a mere method could ever be.

To reach this point we have had to come a long way as far as our concept of reason and science is concerned, and have also needed a great deal of experience - bittersweet experience - regarding the practical consequences of science. Everything would seem to show, then, that the most typical extreme positions of modern times are being abandoned, and that we have entered the post-modern period[^1] .

My intention in these pages is to explore the possibilities of a project of basically Aristotelian inspiration for the integration of the theoretical and practical aspects of reason, for the search for a happy medium between the extremes of logicism and irrationalism. In my opinion, this outlook has much to contribute to the on-going debate on the rationality of science and on the environmental questions that its application brings up.

This is, indeed, a particular aspect of the relationship between reason and practice, but not just any aspect: traditional philosophical problems are arising now, and they will continue to come up in the future, in direct connection with environmental matters - this will be an area and a way for the classical topics of philosophy to reappear.

Rationality, good and evil, justice, the relationship between being and value, the objectivity or subjectivity of knowledge, etc., are venerable philosophical topics that we shall have to reconsider in the light of environmental problems, as they were once tackled in connection with questions of politics, theology, society, science and economy.

I shall now outline the steps that my exposition will follow, together with other considerations necessary for it to fall within the limits of a short piece. In the first place, we need a correct characterization of Modern Age which makes it possible to explain the causes of a bad relationship between theory and practice. This is an extremely complex and multi-faceted task. Here we can hardly even approach a full idea of modernity.

What we can do, however, is point out one of its most essential characteristics[^2] , in some wise the cause of many others and especially near to the interests of this paper.