Jonathan F. Krell
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622058
- eISBN:
- 9781800341319
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622058.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The current ecological debate in France may be summarized by the contrast between philosophers Michel Serres and Luc Ferry. Serres condemns the war on nature that modern humans, desiring in the ...
More
The current ecological debate in France may be summarized by the contrast between philosophers Michel Serres and Luc Ferry. Serres condemns the war on nature that modern humans, desiring in the Cartesian tradition to “master and possess” nature, seem to be waging. He aspires to a “natural contract” between humans and nature, which would entail a symbiotic relationship between the parties. Ferry accuses Serres of being antihumanist—a radical, deep ecologist—and mocks the very idea of a natural contract. While Serres’s world view is ecocentric, placing humans on the same plane as the rest of nature, which should possess legal dignity, Ferry embraces an anthropocentric world view, in which humans are clearly separate from and superior to the rest of nature. Bruno Latour, a student of Serres, accuses Ferry of being mired in Kantian modernism.Less
The current ecological debate in France may be summarized by the contrast between philosophers Michel Serres and Luc Ferry. Serres condemns the war on nature that modern humans, desiring in the Cartesian tradition to “master and possess” nature, seem to be waging. He aspires to a “natural contract” between humans and nature, which would entail a symbiotic relationship between the parties. Ferry accuses Serres of being antihumanist—a radical, deep ecologist—and mocks the very idea of a natural contract. While Serres’s world view is ecocentric, placing humans on the same plane as the rest of nature, which should possess legal dignity, Ferry embraces an anthropocentric world view, in which humans are clearly separate from and superior to the rest of nature. Bruno Latour, a student of Serres, accuses Ferry of being mired in Kantian modernism.
