The Conditions of Selfhood

Abstract

If all the world is process, then you and I are no exception. The subject is an ecological process at every level of our existence. If there is no place for a subject in your ecological philosophy, then you have again made the mistake of building an absolute dichotomy of humanity and nature. Such a mistake would not be obvious at first; its subtlety makes it all the more dangerous, more difficult to catch. An ecological philosophy that neglects accounting for the development of subjectivity is still the product of a subject’s own thinking: mine in writing and yours in reading. A genuinely comprehensive ecological philosophy would account for how ecological processes constitute ecologists. Understanding how humanity develops through natural processes overcomes the dichotomy of humanity and nature. Therefore, an ecological philosophy should have an account of the processes that produce humanity: self-conscious bodies that organize socially.