The Nature of the Body and Body of Nature

Abstract

In the time of climate crisis, there is a growing awareness that philosophy needs to think through the constellation between human beings and nature anew. It has often been pointed out that our Western tradition has tended to regard humans as placed at a distance from nature, even as the exception of nature, which in turn has legitimized a view of nature as a means and resource for its own enterprises. Now, phenomenology has already contributed to the revision of such an understanding of the human-nature relation, not least due to the broad movement called ecophenomenology.1 One aspect of this complex field concerns the human body. The body may, however, prove to be pivotal in recasting our self-understanding with respect to nature, since the body stands on the crossroad between nature and the specific human: The body is undeniably an organism and thus a part of nature, and yet the body is also, thanks to its power to move and perceive, our very opening to nature.