Classical Sociology and the Restoration of Nature

The Relevance of Émile Durkheim and Georg Simmel

Bibliographic Data

ID7097047
AuthorsM Gro (0000-0002-3716-7512, University of Bielefeld, Germany, corresponding author), Matthias Gross (University of Bielefeld, Germany)
Year2000
Volume13
Issue3
Pages277-291
Publication date2000-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization & Environment (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1086-0266 • E-ISSN: 1552-7417
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1086026600133001
OpenAlexW2097446862
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited12

From a social science perspective, one of the central points of ecological restoration is that it implies not only acknowledgement of society’s invention of nature, but also of nature’s answers to human actions. In this article, the author argues that the reflections of the early-20th century sociologists Georg Simmel and Émile Durkheim on the place of human beings in nature could serve as a model for integrating restored and invented nature into sociological analysis, while at the same time allowing other species and nonhuman nature a measure of independence as subjects or actors in a network of relationships that includes humans. Simmel’s concept of society as a web of reciprocal interaction and reciprocal effect (Wechselwirkung), in particular, is of importance for descriptions of a community that includes nonhuman as well as human elements

Acknowledgement · Environmental ethics · Environmental sociology · Epistemology · Perspective (graphical · Reciprocal · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Emile Durkheim and Sociology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Philosophy · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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