Næss named his own personal ecological philosophy Ecosophy T — T for Tvergastein, the mountain cabin where much of it was developed. The system was deliberately personal. Næss believed that the Deep Ecology Platform should be derivable from many different philosophical or spiritual starting points, and that each practitioner should develop her own Ecosophy — her own personal ecological philosophy, grounded in her own ultimate commitments, that converged with others at the platform level. Ecosophy T was one such Ecosophy, not the model to be copied. Its core norm — Self-realization! — was the imperative to expand identification progressively outward until the wider Self includes the community of life. Its core hypothesis was that such expansion produces richer, not poorer, human flourishing.
Ecosophy T's structural commitment to personal ecosophy-construction is more important than its specific content. Næss argued that ecological philosophy is not something one subscribes to but something one builds — a personal system of ultimate norms, derived hypotheses, and