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Autoportrait d'Ellen Day Hale (1885)
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Subjecthood and Nature
Augustin Berque
Abstract. Starting from Descola’s question “To whom does nature belong?”, the present article shows that a same “Mount Horeb principle”, i.e. the absolutization of subjecthood as a subject-predicate of itself, is embodied in the Bible’s sum qui sum as well as in Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. This principle has entailed the modern objectification-mechanization of nature by a transcending human subject. Though, concerning matter, Heisenberg’s physics as well as, concerning life, Imanishi’s “natural science” (without an s) have stressed its inadequacy to the reality of nature, the same Mount Horeb principle still rules our natural sciences (with an s), and correlatively our whole civilization, with its side effects: Anthropocene, and the setting off of the Sixth Extinction of life on this planet; instead of which, a mesological conception of subjecthood is argued.