Latmos: a semiotic view on the subject's role in the sustainability of natural and cultural values (original) (raw)
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Philosophy of nature and culture and its role in shaping Humankind’s attitude to nature
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We live in an era of crises. One of them, the ecological crisis, arose from the fact that the human race plunders nature, destroying, among other things, the Earth’s biodiversity. In my paper I will show that the situation is rooted in a specific worldview. Moreover, I will interrogate the question of how we can deal with the problem. Humankind’s attitude to themselves and to the world (including nature) is based on beliefs and values which make up an unquestioned prejudgment. Individuals absorb it in the process of socialization, as they assimilate the widely understood traditions of the social groups to which they belong. In the Western tradition in particular, our understanding of humanity’s situation in the world and its relation to nature, which we have had since modernity, found its clearest articulation in the views of René Descartes (1596–1650). I will begin by discussing the main characteristics of this position most pertinent to the main problem identified in the title. T...
Biosemiotics, 2021
Growing ecological problems have raised the need for conceptual tools dedicated to studying semiotic processes in cultural-ecological systems. Departing from both ecosemiotics and cultural semiotics, the concept of an ecosemiosphere is proposed to denote the entire complex of semiosis in an ecosystem, including the involvement of human cultural semiosis. More specifically, the ecosemiosphere is a semiotic system comprising all species and their umwelts, alongside the diverse semiotic relations (including humans with their culture) that they have in the given ecosystem, and also the material supporting structures that enable the ecosemiosphere to thrive. Drawing parallels with Juri Lotman's semiosphere concept, the ecosemiosphere is characterized by its heterogeneity, asymmetry, and boundedness. But unlike Lotman's concept, the ecosemiosphere is not characterized by an overall boundedness, that is, by the presence of external binary boundaries and the shared identity arising from this unity. The involvement of human culture in the ecosemiosphere manifests in interspecies dialogues and semiotic engagements. We need to scrutinize what affordances and semiotic resources culture could offer to nonhuman species and how culture could, by semiotic means, raise the integrity, stability, and resiliency of the ecosystem. The ecosemiosphere is a grounded semiosphere.
PASOS Revista De Turismo Y Patrimonio Cultural, 2019
Cultural landscapes represent a complex category where the nature-culture dichotomy seem to not be able to unfold the main features and the profound relations that humans have with the environment. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in the saltpans of Sečovlje (Slovene Istria) and Janubio (Lanzarote-Canary Islands) this article examines informant`s perceptions about the awareness of the importance and the enhancement of the holistic values of both saltpans, as well as the impacts and benefits of tourism. Comparing these perceptions about both cultural landscapes, I try to suggest that the complex fruitfully relations between humans and nature in these saltpans are at odds with the neoliberal logic of nature which exploit and commoditize its resources depriving them of their respective agency. A sustainability to contrast the harmful activities of the market ought to be understood not as a simply isolation and fencing of nature for the sake of conservation, but as a preservation that need to foster the continuity of the deep interactions between human culture and non-human nature which are the core of the cultural landscapes. El replanteamiento y la mejora del patrimonio natural y cultural de los paisajes culturales: el caso de Sečovlje y Janubio saltpans Resumen: Los paisajes culturales representan una categoría compleja en la que la dicotomía naturaleza-cultura parece no poder desplegar las características principales y las relaciones profundas que los humanos tienen con el medio ambiente. A partir de los datos etnográficos recopilados en las salinas de Sečovlje (Istria eslovena) y Janubio (Islas Canarias, Lanzarote), este artículo examina las percepciones de los informantes sobre la conciencia de la importancia y la mejora de los valores holísticos de ambas salinas, así como la Impactos y beneficios del turismo. Al comparar estas percepciones sobre ambos paisajes culturales, trato de sugerir que las complejas relaciones fructíferas entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza en estas salinas están en desacuerdo con la lógica neoliberal de la naturaleza que explota y comercializa sus recursos privándolos de su agencia respectiva. Una sostenibilidad para contrastar las actividades dañinas del mercado debe entenderse no como un simple aislamiento y cercado de la naturaleza en aras de la conservación, sino como una preservación que debe fomentar la continuidad de las interacciones profundas entre la cultura humana y la no humana. Naturaleza que son el núcleo de los paisajes culturales. Palabras Clave: paisajes culturales; Salinas de Sečovlje; Salinas de Janubio; Relaciones cultura-naturaleza; Mejora de los valores.
Vaccaro, I.; Beltran, O. Turning nature into collective heritage... In: Roigé, X.; Frigolé, J. (eds.) Constructing cultural and natural heritage. Parks, museums and rural heritage, p. 63-74. Girona, Institut Català de Recerca en Patrimoni Cultural, 2010
In this chapter we will discuss the economic and political variables that play a role in the understanding of the process by which nature has become public heritage and a commodity worth preserving as heritage. These pages will firstly present the history of conservation. The goal is to present conservation as an important element in the development of Western modernity, connected to nation-state development (governmentality and territorialization) and market economy consolidation (through its commoditization). In the framework of contemporary post-industrial societies nature will be explained as a key element in the emergent leisure economy. The patrimonialization of nature will not only be discussed as a structural phenomenon regulated by the state (and the possibilities of the market), but also as a fundamental element in understanding the new forms that contemporary rurality is taking (the identity of its communities, and their economic and cultural choices).
Cuadernos de Bioética, 2016
While environmental ethics has successfully established itself in philosophy, as presently conceived it is still largely irrelevant to grappling the global ecological crisis because, as Alasdair MacIntyre has argued, ethical philosophy itself is in grave disorder. MacIntyre's historically oriented recovery of virtue ethics is defended , but it is argued that even MacIntyre was too constrained by received assumptions to overcome this disorder. As he himself realized, his ideas need to be integrated and defended through philosophical anthropology. However, it is suggested that current defenders of philosophical anthropology have not done it justice. To appreciate its importance it is necessary accept that we are cultural beings in which the core of culture is the conception of what are humans. This is presupposed not only in thought but in social practices and forms of life. This was understood by Aristotle, but modernity has been straightjacketed by the Seventeenth Century scientific revolution and Hobbes' philosophical anthropology, identifying knowledge and with techno-science and eliminating any place for questioning this conception of humans. The only conception of humanity that could successfully challenge and replace Hobbes' philosophical anthropology, it is argued, is Hegel's philosophical anthropology reformulated and developed on naturalistic foundations. This involves subordinating science to a reconceived humanities with a fundamentally different role accorded to ethics, placing it at the center of social life, politics and economics and at the centre of the struggle to transform culture and society to create an ecologically sustainable civilization. RESUMEN: Mientras que la ética ambiental ha consolidado su presencia en la filosofía, tal como está concebida todavía es en gran medida irrelevante para lidiar la crisis ecológica global, porque, como argumentó Alasdair MacIntyre, la ética en sí está en grave desorden. Se defiende la recuperación de orientación histórica de MacIntyre de ética de la virtud, pero al mismo tiempo se argumenta que incluso MacIntyre fue demasiado limitado para conjeturar de superar este trastorno. Como él mismo cuenta, sus ideas deben ser integradas y defendidas a través de la antropología filosófica. Sin embargo, se sostiene que los defensores actuales de la antropología filosófica no le han todavía hecho justicia. Para apreciar su importancia, es necesario aceptar que somos seres culturales, y el núcleo de la cultura es la concepción que tenemos de la humanidad. Esto se presupone no sólo en el pensamiento, sino también en las prácticas sociales y en las formas de vida. Esto fue entendido por Aristóteles, pero la modernidad ha sido “encarcelada” por la revolución científica del siglo XVII y por la antropología filosófica de Hobbes, por la identificación del conocimiento con la tecnociencia y por la eliminación de cualquier lugar para cuestionar esta concepción de ser humano. Se sostiene que la única concepción de humanidad que podría desafiar y reemplazar la antropología filosófica de Hobbes con éxito es la antropología filosófica de Hegel, reformulada y desarrollada sobre bases naturalistas. Esto implica subordinar la ciencia a una nueva concepción de las humanidades, con un papel fundamentalmente diferente otorgado a la ética, colocándola en el centro de la vida social, política y económica y en el centro de la lucha por transformar la cultura y la sociedad, con el fin de crear una civilización ecológicamente sostenible.
History, Ecology and Semiotics
2016
The idea for this work appeared before 1986 and is presented in the article "The Scientific-technological revolution and the historical consciousness". According to the level of knowledge and awarenessat that time, the article described the implications of scientific and technological revolution-how in the application of new methods in archaeological, anthropological and historical research, as well significant impact of contemporary social and technological changes on the overall picture of our understanding of the past. Lately I realized that this remarques should be added with an element that forms the modernity and the future, and will certainly become dominant 'overall developments in society, and that is the environmental issue. Only in deepest historical perspective the significance of this new moment will receive its full importance. This article seeks to move a current limit of the history of 6,000 years or less, at about 30-40000y., i.e. to the beginning of t...
Conserving natural heritage: shifting positions of culture and nature
2016
In this chapter we give an overview of the changing social perceptions of society's relationship with natural resources. We begin in a medieval setting, and while this is essentially an arbitrary starting point, it does highlight the long-held belief in an external influence being responsible for the creation and maintenance of all elements of the natural world. At that point in time, religious thought viewed society as external to a non-human natural world; a position of theism was maintained. In contrast, this review ends at a time of an increasingly secular and utilitarian society, a time in which the dominant view of the natural world is communicated using the economic language of commodification and monetisation. The process of social change is presented as discrete and simplistic steps; however, history does not exist as a series of themed events conveniently grouped in time and space. With thoughts of the natural world in mind, boundaries between paradigms should be seen ...