ABSTRACT
The dialectic between earth and world facticity occasioned by a mortal response to an environmental krisis should reflect the fact that world is contingent upon the earth. In relation to the pragmatic strategy one can seek to deploy in the context of a contemporary environmental krisis, John Caughey notes Heidegger's remark in 'Overcoming of Metaphysics' that pragmatism is unacceptable because it makes us oblivious to Being. Hence, it is possible to interpret Heidegger's comments on pragmatism as indicative of a negative attitude towards a pragmatic response to the potential for an other beginning. The criteria for the Environmental Imperative to be formulated are: the environmental krisis, the nihilistic world of Technodasein, and the response of the mortals to their ownmost survival-concern within the dialectical framework of a world utterly contingent upon a finite earth. The emergence of the mortals in the light of an environmental krisis reveals their utter contingency upon the earth.
