he aims at “self-realization,” which confuses the issue, for we return finally to a solid
anthropocentrism. He nevertheless addresses a question that I have left aside, that of
the psychology of citizens linked by what he calls relational fields to the totality of the
biosphere, thanks to “ecosophy.” We shall see in Chapter 4 how to grant ethics a com-
pletely different role and what political work is necessary before we can speak of “rela-
tional field,” “ecospheric belongings,” or even any sort of unification. Naess, in his
pleasant gobbledy-gook, is a good representative of this philosophy of ecology that
does feel the metaphysical limits of the division between nature and humanity, but that
strives to “go beyond” the “limits of Western philosophy” instead of delving into the
political origins of this division. If we are to combat this division, it is by adopting a
different politics, not a different psychology. On Naess’s biography, see Rothenberg
and Naess 1993.
- From Ferry 1995, those French readers who await the permission of philoso-
phers to think politically concluded that it was not useful to be interested in the philos-
ophy of ecology, and that a good old Kantian definition of humanity as separation from
nature would be perfectly sufficient. What can the reasonable ecologist respond to the
deep ecologist? Ferry asks, for example. “Quite a few things, actually. Starting with the
fact that the hatred of theartificelinked to our civilization of uprooting is also ahatred
of humans as such.For man is the antinatural being par excellence. This is even what
distinguishes him from other beings, including those who seem the closest to him: the
animals. This is how he escapes natural cycles, how he attains the realm of culture, and
the sphere of morality, which presupposes living in accordance with laws and not just
with nature” (Ferry 1995, xxviii). It is one thing to be skeptical of deep ecology; it is an-
other to define humanity as separation from pure immediacy. Ferry never realizes that
he shares exactly the same nature as those he combats. Only the color is different.
Moreover, as a good Kantian, he finds no better solution than the aestheticization of re-
lations between humanity and nature. - See the fascinating compendium by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey Lloyd
(2000 [1996]), especially the articles by Lloyd and Barbara Cassin. - It suffices to read François Jullien (1995, 1997) to notice alternatives that have
been available to political epistemology for a long time. There is nothing inevitable in
the recourse of politics to Science, as we can see in reading Lloyd 2000 (1996). We find
the same difference in political epistemology in Sophie Houdart’s fascinating thesis
(2000) on a Japanese laboratory of behavioral biology. - As we shall see later on, the positions do not change in the slightest if one uses
the unity of “society in general” and power relations. The same paralysis results. This is
why the sociological critics of deep ecology never go very far, for they take from society
and its power relations the wherewithal to critique the extreme nature of their adver-
saries. See the extreme example of Murray Bookchin (1996): in seeking to rehabilitate
politics without modifying its definition, Bookchin has, in the name of “social ecol-
ogy,” extended the lease not of nature but of the class struggle! - The expression was used for the first time, as far as I know, by Eduardo Viveiros
de Castro (1998, 446), in relation to the Amazonian conception of the body. Let us note,
however, that one of the French journals in the field puts the three termsNatures, Sci-
ences, Sociétésin the plural, so the French are not hopeless after all... - If it sufficed to critique the notion of nature to escape from it, political ecology
NOTES TO PAGES 26–30
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