Philosophy of ecology: eco-poietics and eco-paidetics

Since its first organic formulation in Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications (1968, here the original text), systematics has had a far-reaching influence in the most disparate fields of research, from cybernetics and computer science to the natural sciences, including the social sciences, psychology, economics etc. Nonetheless, the frequent use of the word “system” notwithstanding, we are far from having analysed and adequately dissected the bertalanffyian perspective, which is often reduced to a cybernetic-computational model for our informatic networks “systems”.

Bertalanffy’s proposal entailed the methodical integration and interaction of all the sciences within a web of rigorous interrelations, according to which we couldn’t a posteriori integrate preliminarily given, elements analytically presupposed, from consolidated conceptual habits. The first reason of this conceptual insufficiency is that an effective comprehension and application of systematics forces the author to locate themselves within the system or systems they are taking into consideration, as an emergent and constitutive element. This feature has been highlighted by Gianfranco Minati (2004).

Now more than ever we deem necessary for philosophical research (by nature transdisciplinary and global) to engage in an open-ended reflection to truly confront with the implicit cognitive possibilities lying dormant in systematics. In particular, we deem necessary to lay the groundwork for an “eco-philosophy” able to problematize the very notion of “ecosystems”, implying, as Darwin had already noted in his work, as a complex network of inextricable relations, and treated today as a peculiar object of that science which studies the interactions between the organisms and their environments.

But what do we mean when we say “environment”, “organism” and “living” in the light of systematic principles such as “complexity”, “emergence”, “interaction”, “work”, “organization” and “network”? A brief summary of the general meaning of these principles in systematics might be helpful in preliminarily orienting our reflections also towards – obviously – a critical stance. Let us keep in mind that, within the domain of the philosophy of ecology, taken as a branch of philosophy of science or as a dialogue between biology and philosophy, there are already numerous and meaningful works (Keller & Golley 2000, deLaplante, Brown & Peacock 2011, Brenner 2018, Iofrida 2019).   

The present Noéma Special Issue aims to adopt a systemic, critical and interdisciplinary approach to topics related to ecology and to the very meaning of ‘ecology’. The word ‘ecology’ should not be interpreted in an ideological sense, as some anti-humanist or anti-birth theories deem to do, but as a knot of interactions and interrelations to be investigated. The following quote enlightens the core meaning of our proposal, in a way that all the submitted texts should carefully consider:

in a context of individual-environment correlations of incalculable complexity […], we deal with a complexity of an ideally global process, within which each factor […] never embodies the decisive perspective or the central point. It is not even a point external to the process (which concerns it), it is not a starting point (as everything has always already begun), because each factor and each perspective are located within an extremely complicated mobile correlation. In such sense, we could say that each factor or perspective is in a “system”, and that itis an active and metamorphic part of that system; indeed, each factor or perspective themselves are a system in motion within the system (Sini & Pievani 2020, p.32).

Bibliography

- Brenner, Joseph E., «The Philosophy of Ecology and Sustainability: New Logical and Informational Dimensions», Philosophies 3 (2), pp. 1-21.
- deLaplante, Kevin, Bryson Brown e Kent A. Peacock (a cura di), Philosophy of Ecology, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2011.
- Iofrida, Manlio, Per un paradigma del corpo: una rifondazione filosofica dell’ecologia, Quodlibet, Macerata 2019.
- Keller, David R. e Frank B. Golley (a cura di), The Philosophy of Ecology: from Science to Synthesis, University of Georgia Press, Athens (Georgia, US) 2000.
- Minati, Gianfranco, Teoria generale dei sistemi. Sistemica. Emergenza: un’introduzione. Progettare e processi emergenti: frattura o connubio per l’architettura?, Polimetrica, Monza 2004.
- Sini, Carlo, Telmo Pievani, E avvertirono il cielo. La nascita della cultura, Jaca Book, Milano 2020