I found his imagery powerful. In my view, his anthropocentric language merely substituted one ideology and all its inherent confusion, for another. Moreover, I think he makes several other more serious ontological errors which may be important. Of course, most if not all of these premises are based on human experience, insights, and intuitions but for a variety of complex reasons cannot be settled for all time. In short, these notions may be wrong and we can never be certain, although we may have sound indications one way or the other.
Ontology deals with such notions as time, space, substance, thing, motion, and change .
Needless to say, these notions are important but are generally taken for granted. As we come to grasp the significance of ecosystems and our place in them, believe me, these notions are of the utmost importance. Indeed, I believe that many of our recent natural resource controversies and their social implications result in large part from a profound confusion and error concerning the ontological possibilities of ecosystems. In any event, since I thought that Maser's original impulse was a worthy one, I took the liberty of modifying and adding to these contrasts. I don't herein show his original set, nor itemize the specific reasons why I think each one of these phrasings might be better.