Acting with the World: Doing without Science

Abstract

In this paper I contrast two systematically different patterns of acting in the world via the concepts of enframing and poiesis. Enframing is the usual stance of dualistic domination that we can associate with the Anthropocene, and I focus here on the contrast class, poiesis. To bring out its key features I discuss a form of natural farming developed in Japan by Masanobu Fukuoka, emphasising the way in which Fukuoka’s poetic approach foregrounds the performative back and forth with nature that I call a dance of agency. I review Fukuoka’s critique of the usefulness of modern science and argue instead that strands of traditional eastern philosophy help us to grasp the poetic alternative.