Thinking about Nature

The following is a post by David Knowles who is the serving vice-president of the philosophy society and a post-graduate student in the school:

Philosophical reflection on environmental issues generally tends to focus on environmental ethics and the clarification of relevant concepts such as sustainability. What is relatively neglected is a philosophical account of nature. In response to the current ecological crisis what is required is a philosophy of nature that is both scientific (paying particular attention to the science of ecology) and ethical (in so far as ecological degradation is an ethical issue, requiring an ethical solution). The French philosopher Deleuze once remarked in an interview that he and Guattari (hereafter D&G) would like to “produce a sort of philosophy of Nature, now that any distinction between nature and artifice is becoming blurred.”[1]  In this short post I shall argue that D&G‘s work does in fact contain a nascent philosophy of nature which can be grounded in Deleuzian ethics.

Often nature is considered to be an untamed wilderness that exists in an antagonistic relationship to civilisation or ‘man.’ Nature is also often held to be a place of beauty that is perhaps ‘revelatory’ in the sense that it discloses beauty or truth and forms subjects (for example, people are encouraged to go on ‘nature trips’ in order to ‘find themselves’). In each of these cases there is a bifurcation between humanity and nature. These views can be seen in pop-cultural expressions of eco-apocalypse, such as Wall-E, The Day After Tomorrow and The Road and in films which depict ‘nature’ as that which provides authenticity and truth (most famously in Avatar). In the second case (the view of nature as friend) nature is instrumentalised relative to humanity (i.e. nature is seen as that which gifts experiences or materials to humanity. Thus nature is that which is at the service of humanity rather than a limiting or encroaching force, as in the previous case).

In contrast to this nature-human dichotomy D&G write that:  “[W]e make no distinction between man and nature.”[2] The removal of the human-nature distinction acknowledges that humans are actors within ecosystems, rather than a unique species which stands above nature (to extract resources or truth from nature). This then means that nature cannot be conceived as that which existed prior to or apart from human influence. This raises questions for the issues of conservation and ecological restoration.

Philosophers such as Eric Katz and Robert Eliot have argued that human intervention in nature compromises the ‘authenticity’ of nature and necessarily perpetuates artificiality.[3] This, of course, rests on the nature/artifice dualism dismissed earlier and relies on a false notion of a true or ‘authentic’ ecosystem which existed in the past. Given the constructed nature of all ecosystems there is no true, authentic ecosystem which we may return to. Rather this notion of authenticity is imported from religious/philosophical ideas about a ‘pastoral’ nature. However, despite these weaknesses it does raise the issue of why restoration is desirable, given that this involves the destruction of an already-existing ecosystem. D&G’s philosophy of nature teaches us that we cannot rely on the concept of a ‘natural’ ecosystem. This coheres with modern scientific ecology, which teaches that there is no such thing a stable ‘climax community.’[4]

Instead of relying on conceptions of a ‘natural’ ecosystem we must evaluate the relationships which constitute the particular ecosystem, asking if they are productive of immanence (where immanence is understood as the proliferation of diverse relationships) or if it tends to the dissolution of relationships and increased entropy. This does not institute a conception of an ‘ideal ecosystem’ whether this is described in terms of a climax community (as in older versions of ecological science) or an ‘authentic nature’ (as in much Green Ideology). Rather, it institutes the possibility of the creation of new and diverse life through the production of immanence. Thus a Deleuzoguattarian philosophy of nature teaches us not only that reality is fundamentally relational, but also that we can evaluate and nurture these relationships in the production of immanence, such as in the case of ecosystems.

As hinted at this understanding can serve as a corrective to much of contemporary ‘Green’ ideology which tends to focus on political and aesthetic concerns rather than its goals being shaped by scientific ecology. For example, the current government has portrayed itself as the ‘greenest government ever’, partly through its application of localism and a return to parish boundaries. This promotes a nostalgic ‘pastoral’ conception of nature and ignores scientific concepts such as ecotones (the corridors that mark off a kind of porous boundary from one ecosystem to another). In this way, political metaphors serve to undermine insights provided by scientific ecology. An appropriation of a more scientific philosophy of nature (such as D&G aim to provide) may help overcome these naïve ideals.

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[1] Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, 1972-1990., trans. Martin Joughin, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, pg 155.

[2] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark seem, and Helen R. Lane, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983, pg. 4.

[3] Eric Katz, ‘The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature,’ Research in Philosophy and Technology, 12, 1992; and Robert Eliot, Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration, London: Routledge, 1997.

[4] See Daniel Botkin’s Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology For The Twenty-first Century, Oxford University Press, 1990.