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Feelings

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Ontology and Closeness in Human-Nature Relationships

Abstract

Feelings are the lifeblood of close relationships, but cannot be taken as purely material, purely internal to individual beings, or purely the domain of humans or human-like animals. For example, even at a material level a wide range of animals display diverse emotions, including honeybees showing pessimism! Such realities put pressure on human/nature dualist notions of human-like physiology as the sole sponsor of feelings. In addition, because electrical activity is associated with feeling experiences, and because plants have complex electrical processes at times homologous with animals, it’s possible that plants can also have feelings. Even further, tentative ontological conceptual bridges can be built to feelings in “inanimate” beings. When human/nature dualisms are moved aside, feeling experiences in the presence of “inanimate” beings like mountains, as described by modern nature writers and poets, serve as potential instances of humans perceiving or receiving these feelings directly from those beings.

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  1. Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    Neil H. Kessler

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Kessler, N.H. (2019). Feelings. In: Ontology and Closeness in Human-Nature Relationships. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99274-7_9

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