Conference Announcement
Theme: The Political Dimension of Nature
Subtitle: An Intercultural Critique
Type: Annual Conference
Institution: Society for Intercultural Philosophy
University of Tübingen
Location: Tübingen (Germany)
Date: 4.–6.6.2021
The increasingly critical impact of climate change has placed human
interaction with nature on the political agenda. This reflects the
realization that humans are in the process of destroying their own
livelihoods. While politics, however, is primarily concerned with
stopping the destruction,contemporary natural philosophy thought is
being given to a fundamentally different way of dealing with nature.
In addition, attention has recently been drawn, especially in the
sociology of knowledge, to the profound shock that the current
climate crisis means for human's self-understanding in modernity.
Common to the various answers to the shaking of the human
self-understanding is that they want to remeasure the relationship
between humans and their environment, things, nature and technology.
Such a remeasurement exceeds political action, since in the history
of European-Western philosophy the sphere of the political has itself
always been understood in distinction to nature.
The Aristotelian understanding of man as a zoon politikon is based on
the fact that humans are able to give themselves their own laws and
that the sphere of action of such autonomy is set off against the
heteronomous determined nature. Even in 20th century, this figure can
be found, for example, in the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
The demand for a remeasurement of the relationship between man and
nature is therefore not only a question of political action, but
above all also a question of the political as distinct from the
natural. Precisely for this reason, however, the attempt to ascribe
an agency of its own to nature and things could fall short, since it
merely enlarges the circle of those who participate in the sphere of
political action. The question of the political and the natural goes
deeper and affects the philosophical thinking in the European-Western
tradition in its foundations.
This is where intercultural criticism must start and confront the
current struggle for a renewal of the understanding of nature with
the thinking of non-European cultures and epochs. In recent years,
corresponding work has been done, above all, in confrontation with
Buddhism and in the recognition of Latin American and African
experiences. The conference would like to tie in with these works,
but also to allow further experiences of nature from other cultural
traditions to have their say. In addition, the importance of an
intercultural experience of nature will be explored. If the
relationship between human beings and nature presents itself
differently in the various approaches, then it is more than just a
matter of different conceptualizations of nature. Then human reality
as a whole is affected and therefore the question of the relation of
the different approaches to each other arises. The answer to this
question directly concerns the political dimension of nature.
Important Information
- Due to the current pandemic situation, the conference will take
place as an online event. Participation will be possible via ZOOM.
Please register for free via: info(at)ciis.uni-tuebingen.de
You will receive the invitation link a few days prior to the
conference. The link allows you to participate in the entire
conference including the afternoon sections. Registered participants
will have the opportunity to actively engage in the discussion of all
lectures.
- It is also possible to just follow the lectures via YouTube
livestream without registration. This will not allow you to engage in
discussion, however! Please visit our channel at the time of the
conference: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbCRrdH7JsyeTU0h9VJKAQ
- In case the current Covid-19 restrictions will change in the next
weeks such that a Hybrid-event is possible, we will inform you via
GIP newsletter and on our website: https://www.int-gip.de
Program
Friday, 4 June 20211
09:30
Welcome and Introduction to the Conference
by Niels Weidtmann, President of GIP (University of Tübingen)
10:15
James Ogude (University of Pretoria):
Ubuntu and the Principle of Co-Agency:
Reflection on nature-human nexus in African ecology
11:30
Philippe Descola (Collège de France, Paris):
Cosmopolitics of the Earth
12:30
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 1
Nature in non-Western Traditions
Cédric Molino-Machetto (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès):
Ibn Khaldûn: politics and nature, a biological anthropology of power
and violence
Silvia Donzelli (Universities of Bielefeld and Hamburg):
African environmental ethics and politics
Hanna McGaughey (Universität Trier):
A (Modern) Reflection of (Japanese) Nature)
Section 2
Religions and Nature
Munjed M. Murad (Harvard Divinity School):
Developing/Discovering Theories for the Study of the Non-Human in
Islam and Christianity
Michael Reder (Hochschule für Philosophie München):
Für eine relationale und (inter-)kulturelle Politik der Natur. Über
liberale Klimapolitik und ihre Begrenzungen aus interkultureller
Perspektive
Fernando Wirtz (Universität Tübingen):
Myth and Nature in Miki Kioyshi and Kōsaka Masaaki
18:00
Rita Segato (University of Brasilia):
tba
Saturday, 5 June 2021
09:00
Meera Baindur (Manipal University Jaipur):
Nature as matter of beings and the politics of matter in Indian
traditions and thought
10:15
Hiroshi Abe (University of Kyoto):
tba
11:30
Angela Roothaan (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam):
Where Politics and Philosophy Intersect – Deconstructive,
Postcolonial, Indigenous Approaches to Nature
12:30
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 3
Politics of Nature
Ana Vieyra (Emory University):
Valuing nature without naturalizing value
Juan Ignacio Chávez (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru):
National Futures: Science, literature, and cartography in Argentina
and Peru
Alexander Stingl (IAS Warwick) / Gilles Lhuilier (ENS Rennes):
Discussing Rights of Nature, Human Rights, and Earth Transnational
Law on the example of Blue Economy legal cases
Section 4
Decolonial Approaches to Nature
Zaida Olvera (AU of Mexico State / NAU of Mexico):
A Philosophical Approach to the Concept of the Nature Reserve: The
Problem of Spatial Exclusion
Massimiliano Lacertosa (University of Warwick):
The perspective of the myriad things (wanwu 萬物) in the Zhuangzi
莊子 and the possibility of a non-anthropocentric vision of nature
Pius Mosima (University of Bamenda):
African ‘consensus democracy’ and nature: an intercultural approach
to the politics of conservation
18:00
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (George Washington University):
The Significance of Nature in Human Life – Spiritually,
Intellectually and Socio-Politically
20:00
Meeting of GIP Members
Sunday, 6 June 2021
10:00
Dalia Nasser (University of Sydney):
Alexander von Humboldt – The Aesthetic Foundations of Ecology, and
Why That Matters Today
11:00
Michael Hampe (ETH Zürich), Olivier Del Fabbro (ETH Zürich):
State of Nature - War against Nature: From Hobbes to Latour
12:15
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 5
Alternative Approaches to Nature
Louise Müller (Leiden University):
Sophie Olúwolé’s classical Yoruba philosophy and its significance for
a new critical feminist non-binary philosophy of nature
Matthias Kramm (Wageningen University):
Nature in Māori philosophy – the case of the Whanganui River
Patricia D. Reyes (University of Twente):
The post-anthropocentric social and its contracts:
Indigenous Place-thought meets digitally mediated climate activism
Section 6
Phenomenology of Nature
Irene Breuer (Bergische Universität Wuppertal):
Natürliche und kulturell/politische Lebenswelten in Widerstreit: Die
Exilerfahrung aus der Sicht des uruguayischen Schriftstellers Mario
Benedetti
Claus Dierksmeier (University of Tübingen):
Animals as Persons? On K.C.F. Krause’s Phenomenology of Nature
Mikhail Belousov (Russian Presidential Academy for National Economy
and Public Administration): Husserl vs Galileo: the naturalism
critique overturned
18:00
Jason Wirth (University of Seattle):
Nishitani Keiji and Ecological Economy
19:00
Closing Remarks by Niels Weidtmann
Contact:
Dr. Niels Weidtmann
Society for Intercultural Philosophy
University of Tübingen
Email: info(at)ciis.uni-tuebingen.de
Web: http://www.int-gip.deConference Announcement
Theme: The Political Dimension of Nature
Subtitle: An Intercultural Critique
Type: Annual Conference
Institution: Society for Intercultural Philosophy
University of Tübingen
Location: Tübingen (Germany)
Date: 4.–6.6.2021
__________________________________________________
The increasingly critical impact of climate change has placed human
interaction with nature on the political agenda. This reflects the
realization that humans are in the process of destroying their own
livelihoods. While politics, however, is primarily concerned with
stopping the destruction,contemporary natural philosophy thought is
being given to a fundamentally different way of dealing with nature.
In addition, attention has recently been drawn, especially in the
sociology of knowledge, to the profound shock that the current
climate crisis means for human's self-understanding in modernity.
Common to the various answers to the shaking of the human
self-understanding is that they want to remeasure the relationship
between humans and their environment, things, nature and technology.
Such a remeasurement exceeds political action, since in the history
of European-Western philosophy the sphere of the political has itself
always been understood in distinction to nature.
The Aristotelian understanding of man as a zoon politikon is based on
the fact that humans are able to give themselves their own laws and
that the sphere of action of such autonomy is set off against the
heteronomous determined nature. Even in 20th century, this figure can
be found, for example, in the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
The demand for a remeasurement of the relationship between man and
nature is therefore not only a question of political action, but
above all also a question of the political as distinct from the
natural. Precisely for this reason, however, the attempt to ascribe
an agency of its own to nature and things could fall short, since it
merely enlarges the circle of those who participate in the sphere of
political action. The question of the political and the natural goes
deeper and affects the philosophical thinking in the European-Western
tradition in its foundations.
This is where intercultural criticism must start and confront the
current struggle for a renewal of the understanding of nature with
the thinking of non-European cultures and epochs. In recent years,
corresponding work has been done, above all, in confrontation with
Buddhism and in the recognition of Latin American and African
experiences. The conference would like to tie in with these works,
but also to allow further experiences of nature from other cultural
traditions to have their say. In addition, the importance of an
intercultural experience of nature will be explored. If the
relationship between human beings and nature presents itself
differently in the various approaches, then it is more than just a
matter of different conceptualizations of nature. Then human reality
as a whole is affected and therefore the question of the relation of
the different approaches to each other arises. The answer to this
question directly concerns the political dimension of nature.
Important Information
- Due to the current pandemic situation, the conference will take
place as an online event. Participation will be possible via ZOOM.
Please register for free via: info(at)ciis.uni-tuebingen.de
You will receive the invitation link a few days prior to the
conference. The link allows you to participate in the entire
conference including the afternoon sections. Registered participants
will have the opportunity to actively engage in the discussion of all
lectures.
- It is also possible to just follow the lectures via YouTube
livestream without registration. This will not allow you to engage in
discussion, however! Please visit our channel at the time of the
conference: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbCRrdH7JsyeTU0h9VJKAQ
- In case the current Covid-19 restrictions will change in the next
weeks such that a Hybrid-event is possible, we will inform you via
GIP newsletter and on our website: https://www.int-gip.de
Program
Friday, 4 June 20211
09:30
Welcome and Introduction to the Conference
by Niels Weidtmann, President of GIP (University of Tübingen)
10:15
James Ogude (University of Pretoria):
Ubuntu and the Principle of Co-Agency:
Reflection on nature-human nexus in African ecology
11:30
Philippe Descola (Collège de France, Paris):
Cosmopolitics of the Earth
12:30
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 1
Nature in non-Western Traditions
Cédric Molino-Machetto (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès):
Ibn Khaldûn: politics and nature, a biological anthropology of power
and violence
Silvia Donzelli (Universities of Bielefeld and Hamburg):
African environmental ethics and politics
Hanna McGaughey (Universität Trier):
A (Modern) Reflection of (Japanese) Nature)
Section 2
Religions and Nature
Munjed M. Murad (Harvard Divinity School):
Developing/Discovering Theories for the Study of the Non-Human in
Islam and Christianity
Michael Reder (Hochschule für Philosophie München):
Für eine relationale und (inter-)kulturelle Politik der Natur. Über
liberale Klimapolitik und ihre Begrenzungen aus interkultureller
Perspektive
Fernando Wirtz (Universität Tübingen):
Myth and Nature in Miki Kioyshi and Kōsaka Masaaki
18:00
Rita Segato (University of Brasilia):
tba
Saturday, 5 June 2021
09:00
Meera Baindur (Manipal University Jaipur):
Nature as matter of beings and the politics of matter in Indian
traditions and thought
10:15
Hiroshi Abe (University of Kyoto):
tba
11:30
Angela Roothaan (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam):
Where Politics and Philosophy Intersect – Deconstructive,
Postcolonial, Indigenous Approaches to Nature
12:30
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 3
Politics of Nature
Ana Vieyra (Emory University):
Valuing nature without naturalizing value
Juan Ignacio Chávez (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru):
National Futures: Science, literature, and cartography in Argentina
and Peru
Alexander Stingl (IAS Warwick) / Gilles Lhuilier (ENS Rennes):
Discussing Rights of Nature, Human Rights, and Earth Transnational
Law on the example of Blue Economy legal cases
Section 4
Decolonial Approaches to Nature
Zaida Olvera (AU of Mexico State / NAU of Mexico):
A Philosophical Approach to the Concept of the Nature Reserve: The
Problem of Spatial Exclusion
Massimiliano Lacertosa (University of Warwick):
The perspective of the myriad things (wanwu 萬物) in the Zhuangzi
莊子 and the possibility of a non-anthropocentric vision of nature
Pius Mosima (University of Bamenda):
African ‘consensus democracy’ and nature: an intercultural approach
to the politics of conservation
18:00
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (George Washington University):
The Significance of Nature in Human Life – Spiritually,
Intellectually and Socio-Politically
20:00
Meeting of GIP Members
Sunday, 6 June 2021
10:00
Dalia Nasser (University of Sydney):
Alexander von Humboldt – The Aesthetic Foundations of Ecology, and
Why That Matters Today
11:00
Michael Hampe (ETH Zürich), Olivier Del Fabbro (ETH Zürich):
State of Nature - War against Nature: From Hobbes to Latour
12:15
Lunch Break
14:30
Parallel Sections
Section 5
Alternative Approaches to Nature
Louise Müller (Leiden University):
Sophie Olúwolé’s classical Yoruba philosophy and its significance for
a new critical feminist non-binary philosophy of nature
Matthias Kramm (Wageningen University):
Nature in Māori philosophy – the case of the Whanganui River
Patricia D. Reyes (University of Twente):
The post-anthropocentric social and its contracts:
Indigenous Place-thought meets digitally mediated climate activism
Section 6
Phenomenology of Nature
Irene Breuer (Bergische Universität Wuppertal):
Natürliche und kulturell/politische Lebenswelten in Widerstreit: Die
Exilerfahrung aus der Sicht des uruguayischen Schriftstellers Mario
Benedetti
Claus Dierksmeier (University of Tübingen):
Animals as Persons? On K.C.F. Krause’s Phenomenology of Nature
Mikhail Belousov (Russian Presidential Academy for National Economy
and Public Administration): Husserl vs Galileo: the naturalism
critique overturned
18:00
Jason Wirth (University of Seattle):
Nishitani Keiji and Ecological Economy
19:00
Closing Remarks by Niels Weidtmann
Contact:
Dr. Niels Weidtmann
Society for Intercultural Philosophy
University of Tübingen
Email: info(at)ciis.uni-tuebingen.de
Web: http://www.int-gip.de