Humans and Their Environment, Beyond the Nature/Culture Opposition

Claude Calame

Apr 2023 · Transnational Press London

About this eBook

The modern concept of “nature” appeared during the 17th Century: nature as a mechanical object to be submitted to reason man. A long tradition refers to the concept of nature in the Greek phusis. It is referring to a dynamic process that engages in criticizing the modern paradigm of nature as opposed to culture.

As it is, the principle of the domination and exploitation by humans of what we consider as nature is at the heart of the ideological, economic and financial models imposed by neoliberal capitalism. Based on the objective of growth, this model shapes and destroys human communities as well as the environment on which they rely and sustain.

The climatic urgency as well as the limited capacity of the resources of the earth, require a transition towards an ecosocialism for another world. The anthropological confrontation with the Greek phusis invites to a break with capitalism based on a large scale and speedy use of technologies and with the only objective of financial gain. The result has been destructive productivism. Instead, we have to take into account the complexity of and interactions between human societies and their technical practices in their environment. The survival of one or the other is at stake. In sum, nature is culture.

Contents

​​​​​​​Preface to the English Edition. 3

Introduction. 9

Between Nature and Culture. 15

I. Humans and Their Milieu in Ancient Greece. 19

II. From the Enlightenment Philosophers to Modern Anthropologists 37

III. Beyond Anthropological Determinisms: Permeabilities 47

IV. The Human Being and its Environment: Interactive Relationships 57

V. For an Ecosocialist Understanding of Humans and their Milieu. 65

About the author

Claude Calame is the Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (Centre AnHiMA: Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Antiques). He is a historian and anthropologist interested in Greek culture and poetry. In English, he published The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece (Princeton University Press 1999), Masks of Authority. Fiction and Pragmatics in Ancient Greek Poetics (Cornell University Press 2005), Greek Mythology. Poetics, Pragmatics and Fiction (Cambridge University Press 2009).