An enquiry into the ontological and logical foundations of sustainability: Toward a conceptual integration of the interface ‘Nature/Humanity’

Augustin Berque

doi:10.1017/s2059479819000097

Abstract

Non-technical summary Implementing the logical and ontological principles (dualism, mechanicism, reductionism, law of excluded middle, etc.) of modernity has brought forth an unsustainable world. An overcoming of these principles is proposed by mesology (Umweltlehre, fûdoron), centring on the concept of trajection and the existential operator as (als, en tant que).

Highlights

As Arturo Escobar recently wrote, ‘Sustainability cannot be limited to the sole environmental, economic and cultural dimensions, leaving aside epistemic and ontological aspects’ (Escobar, 2018: 82)
Our existence on the Earth is fundamentally an ontological question, and the fact is that the epistemic frame of our present civilization – that is, what I shall call the modern-classical Western paradigm (MCWP) – has put this condition aside, abstracting the human being into a transcendental position toward nature
The MCWP is ontologically and logically founded on the principle of decosmization, by means of abstracting our Being from its milieu: (1) ontologically with dualism; and (2) logically with the law of excluded middle, both entailing the reign of Binarity

Summary

Introduction

As Arturo Escobar recently wrote, ‘Sustainability cannot be limited to the sole environmental, economic and cultural dimensions, leaving aside epistemic and ontological aspects’ (Escobar, 2018: 82). The aim of the present article is precisely to deal with these last two aspects, understanding here ‘epistemic’ as the logical frame of our ways of thinking. True, such aspects of the question of sustainability are not the ordinary concern of its specialists, whose reflection, it goes without saying, is mainly focused on environmental problems in the broad sense. Our existence on the Earth is fundamentally an ontological question, and the fact is that the epistemic frame of our present civilization – that is, what I shall call the modern-classical Western paradigm (MCWP) – has put this condition aside, abstracting the human being into a transcendental position toward nature. What the present article aims at is to refute this paradigm by showing that, on the contrary, human existence is necessarily structured as such by its relation with a certain milieu, evolutionarily and historically elaborated from the environment as its raw material

From Mount Horeb to transhumanism and geoengineering

What is mesology?

From possibilism to the logic of ‘as’

In search of the predicative field

Overcoming the MCWP with the meso-logic of mesology

Conclusion