Abstract: The subject of this article is the concepts of nature and human in the works of the authors – representatives of environmentalism, and the philosophers and sociologists whose ideas were included into the context of the environmentalistic thought. The goal of this research is to demonstrate how these authors solve the task of overcoming the classical cognitive opposition of nature and culture, which allows the representatives of such direction to observe the entire system of human activity and the prospects of social development from the new angle. Special attention is given to the examination of the peculiarities of the modern European understanding of nature, which in many aspects determined the sway of living of a European person, as well as the logic of development of almost all elements of the human life. It is also illustrated how the modern European model of world perception, based on the subject-object model, is being surmounted within the contemporary environmentalistic thought. The article explores the philosophical grounds of the new ways of understanding of nature in environmentalism, as well as highlights the major disputes related to his topic. The scientific novelty consists in description of the philosophical foundations of environmentalism that are yet to be completed, and currently presented by several programs with certain advantages and disadvantages. The conclusion is made that within the framework of environmentalism there is an active process of search and formulation of the new principles of human and social existence, which imply the new ways of understanding of the human-nature relations, and the new types of social activity that include nature into the other contexts of human activity.