Presentation
This course traces the concept of nature over time. Today, nature lies at the centre of debates raising both theoretical and practical issues, in the context of ecological crisis. This course approaches the concept of nature by resituating it within its multiple and non-linear histories.
The first part of the course will be devoted to the history of the concept of nature, and in particular to the Greek term from which it derives, phúsis, from its occurrence in Homer to the central role it plays in philosophy, notably in Aristotelian physics. We will focus in particular on cosmology and on the role of celestial motion within this context.
Building on this historical perspective, the course will then turn to contemporary debates surrounding the concept of nature. Drawing on philosophy, environmental ethics and environmental history, it will examine the concept of nature in relation to the notions of environment and milieu. We will also reflect, in particular through the question of the relationship between outer space and nature, on the connections between conceptions of nature and conceptions of ecology, and on the issue of pollution, including so-called space pollution.
Particular attention will be given to the plurivocity of the term nature, to the history of its translations, to the divisions that have been drawn between nature and what it is not (namely technique, culture, society and history), and finally, to the often underlying interplay between fact and norm within this concept, at the junction of knowledge and power.
This course is open to students from both the sciences and the humanities.
S1 – Monday 2 p.m.-4 p.m. – Marbo (29), 21/09 at conference (46)