What is an ecological view?
An ecological view sees nothing in isolation and everything in an infinite network of interconnections. An ecological view recognizes the limitations of knowledge, perception, and experience; an ecological view acknowledges that words, concepts, and ideas are all models, not reality itself; evaluates models according to their congruence with the ongoing experience of reality; and draws on models from all disciplines in creating an assembly of knowledge and techniques for addressing a given problem. An ecological view attempts to understand the system with a wide enough view that a frame can be drawn around each problem to include the important relationships and exclude less important ones, while acknowledging the inherent incomplete nature of the area within the frame.
An ecological view is valuable in building an understanding about the world from existing knowledge, and in directing epistemological efforts towards questions that are likely to enhance this understanding. An ecological view is an antidote to disciplinary ideology by explicitly embracing the multifaceted nature of human understanding: no one facet can provide a sufficient basis on which to attempt to build a complete understanding The facet simply contributes some of the building materials for this structure.
An ecological view is wider and more shallow that a particular view. The broad thinker knows something about everything and everything about nothing. Ecological thinking on its own can only provide structure, not substance, to the discussion of a problem. The automotive ecologist, while taking a broader view, knows much less about the functioning of the car than the automotive engineer—would be more likely able to give a lecture on the social significance cars, but less likely, I suspect, to construct a car from a pile of raw materials. — Adam Riggen