The contemporary zeal for object-oriented ontology, in which relationality and correlationism are understood as arrogant, delusional acts – not to mention our generally critical relation to the Anthropocene – is hard to distinguish from the fantasy of the human as something that has been sufficiently historicized. But if that is so, how will we understand the need that we face today to intervene in nature? To be not only a part of how nature is sustained, but also to be included in what is sustained in and as nature. How will we intervene in human nature, if what human nature implies is an understanding of the human as the being who attempts to dominate, and thus separate himself from, nature? If a human being is not, strictly speaking, subject to ocular proof, and if we regard the human as an extension of nature, then what could the seamlessness of history truly imply?
To discuss the subject of human nature means to think again about the kinds of philosophical dilemmas that lie at the core of the history of thought: the dichotomies between soul and body, rationality and sensibility, nature and culture, man and god. Can one science consider the totality of our “being natural”? How is our activity on Earth shaping nature itself? It looks like our world is sending us signals of distress and danger. Nature is our mother and provides us nurture, but is also the realm of danger, and the dimension where our own existence is put into question. [read more]