Centre européen d’études japonaises d’Alsace, Colmar, 21-23 November 2015
International symposium Japanese ecology and its conflicting edges
Subjecthood and Nature by Augustin BERQUE berque@ehess.fr
Abstract – Starting from Descola’s question “To whom does nature belong?”, the present article shows that a same “Mount Horeb principle”, i.e. the absolutization of subjecthood as a subjectpredicate of itself, is embodied in the Bible’s sum qui sum as well as in Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. This principle has entailed the modern objectification-mechanization of nature by a transcending human subject. Though, concerning matter, Heisenberg’s physics as well as, concerning life, Imanishi’s “natural science” (without an s) have stressed its inadequacy to the reality of nature, the same Mount Horeb principle still rules our natural sciences (with an s), and correlatively our whole civilization, with its side effects: Anthropocene, and the setting off of the Sixth Extinction of life on this planet; instead of which, a mesological conception of subjecthood is argued.
1. Who is that “whom”? Anthropologist Philippe Descola’s expression “To whom does nature belong” (À qui appartient la nature ?), at first glance, seems indeed anthropological, since in its Japanese translation, Shizen wa dare no mono ka 自然は誰のものか, dare (whom?) cannot be but a human being. 1 If such is the case, one immediately remembers Descartes’ famous expression in the Discourse on the Method, “comme maîtres et possesseurs de la nature”, as masters and owners of nature.2 Could those “masters and owners” be anything else than human beings? Yet, this is only an illusion, proper to the world of the Japanese language. As a matter of fact, in Japanese, dare (who?) can only be human, and the etymology of the corresponding sinogram 誰, too, supposes necessarily human existence, since it is composed with 言, speech – that unique attribute of the zôon logon echon – and with 隹, anciently a copula indicating an assertive modal value, coming from the sense of ornithomancy (auguring from birds), in Chinese niao bu 鳥卜. Dare 誰, then, is without doubt a pronoun for some kind of human existence. On the other hand, in the initial French expression À qui appartient la nature ?, the pronoun qui (who) may represent a human, but also a non-human being. Then, asking “To whom does nature belong?” implies that the owner of nature may be any kind of being, perhaps nature itself. And effectively, Descola’s article reviews various possibilities in that respect. However, in his conclusion, Descola proposes what he calls universalisme relatif, a relative universalism posing as its basic condition the relation of natural phenomena with human existence. This sounds quite close to that which Watsuji Tetsurô, in Fûdo (1935), conceptualized as “mediance as the structural moment of human existence” (ningen sonzai no kôzô keiki toshite no fûdosei 人間存在の構造契機としての風土性)3, the basic condition of which is human subjecthood (ningen no shutaisei 人間の主体性). Though there is here obviously a similarity between the two thinkers, the fact is that, differing from philosopher Watsuji, anthropologist Descola does not propose such an ontological concept as mediance; The present paper is a free translation of my contribution, Shizen to shutaisei 自然と主体性, to a collective book edited by AKIMICHI Tomoya, Kôsaku suru sekai – shizen to bunka no datsukôchiku (Intertwined worlds – deconstructing nature and culture), forthcoming at Kyoto University Press, associating the Japanese translation of an anthology of Ph. Descola’s essays with related Japanese essays. The original Japanese version of my text can be found at the end of the present translation. 2 In Japanese : shizen no nushi to shoyûsha kanoyô ni 自然の主と所有者かのように. 3 First line of the book, Tokyo : Iwanami, 1979 (1935). I have translated and commented this book in French : WATSUJI Tetsurô, Fûdo, le milieu humain, Paris : CNRS, 2011. 1