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Environmental aesthetics, in the western philosophical tradition, has its
roots in eighteenth and nineteenth century aesthetics, and its
concern with questions concerning the aesthetics of nature.
The theme of our aesthetic response to mountains, as you might
expect, therefore looms large in these earlier writings. (Link to Stanford
Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry:
Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics)
Burke's
A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
and the Beautiful
is a foundational text of environmental
aesthetics, exploring our mixed responses of pleasure and terror
to certain natural sights, including mountain vistas.
Here is a link to a course at the University of Alberta that
combines elements of
mountaineering and environmental philosophy
(Thanks to Tim Hankinson for this link.)
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