ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the some ways of contemporary philosophy can indeed inform landscape research. The landscape concept can surely be seen as a very contested and elusive concept, having been interpreted in quite contrasting ways. This dualistic way of defining landscape and approaching landscape assessment can contribute to the weak status of landscape in environmental decision-making. It explains the qualitative case study of the preparation for the Icelandic Nature Conservation Strategy 2004-2008, where contributors to the strategy were interviewed, confirms this. The subjective aspect of landscape was always linked to aesthetic values. This became the experts' recurring, niggling problem. The chapter discusses the Merleau-Ponty's idea of flesh suggests that both perceiver and the perceived are active in the event of perception. It explains the Atmosphere is a perfect term to describe the way that perception is the common reality of the perceiver and the perceived.
