ABSTRACT
In this epilogue to the volume by William H. Warren, current president of The International Society for Ecological Psychology, ponders the past 25 years and the current state of ecological psychology. This chapter places the discussion in the context of the centuries-long philosophical question: how are we, as perceiving agents, in touch with our surrounding environment? In traditional approaches the perceiver is like an isolated submariner trolling the deep alone, reconstructing its surround based on images appearing on the sonar screen. The mission of ecological psychology is to get the little person out of the submarine and support a scientific theory that posits perceiving and acting as dynamic surfing, based on direct perception. The achievements of ecological psychology are placed in the context of 21st-century ecological science, with the goal to finish disassembling the submarine, and construct a fuller, law-based theory of surfing.
