Fabricating Nature

A Critique of the Social Construction of Nature

Bibliographic Data

ID8098618
AuthorsDavid W Kidner (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume22
Issue4
Pages339-357
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4275 • E-ISSN: 2153-7895
PublisherPhilosophy Documentation Center (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5840/enviroethics20002242
OpenAlexW2317362099
LanguageEN
Citations received16

Models of nature have usually referred to ecological, or more generally, scientific understandings, and have seldom included cultural factors. Recently, however, there has been a trend toward defining nature as a “social construction,” that is, as an artifact of human social and linguistic capability. I argue that constructionism attempts to assimilate nature to an exclusively anthropocentric “reality,” and that it should be seen as expressing long-term industrialist tendencies to separate the “human” and the “natural” realms and to assimilate the latter to the former. Consequently, the constructionist approach, rather than offering us a fertile means of incorporating cultural influences within environmental theorizing, is better viewed as a cognitive counterpart to industrialism’s physical assimilation of the natural world

Applied philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy