CUL120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Philippe Descola, Chauvinism, Ecocentrism

• School: Macquarie University
• Department: Critical and Cultural Studies
• Course: CUL120
• Professor: All

Document Summary

It is the concept of the non-human " [nature is other of the human; we understand ourselves in contrast to nature: humanism + how we culturally construct our views of nature > environmental crisis, effects natural world. Humans & nature: before humanism: ancient greece, wild nature was controlled by gods, aristotle (c4th bce) nature" could be investigated. Humans not separate from natural order (no different between humans + animals), but at the top of the natural order. Plants & animals were ensouled" everything has a soul. The modern west"s way of representing nature is by no reason widely shared. In many regions of the planet, humans and non-humans are not conceived as developing in incommunicable worlds or according to separate principles. Plants, animals, river and rocks, meteors and the seasons do. Cul120 not exits all together in an ontological niche defined by the absence of human beings . Mod 1: what is culture/cultural studies? (philippe descola, 2013: 30)