IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/env/journl/ev17ev1715.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nature (and Politics)

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Dobson

Abstract

This paper addresses the leitmotif of Alan Holland's work, which is argued here to be a defence of the existence and worth of nonhuman nature. Definitions of politics have always depended on the idea of nature as a contrasting non-political realm, usually turning on the centrality of speech. Referencing the work of Aristotle, Kant and Bentham, I suggest that the instability of the distinction between the human and the nonhuman means that politics, as 'thing and activity', must itself be unstable. The question of whether there can be a politics without nature is explored through an analysis of the work of Latour, and the conclusion is reached that listening may well be just as important as speaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Dobson, 2008. "Nature (and Politics)," Environmental Values, White Horse Press, vol. 17(2), pages 285-301, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:env:journl:ev17:ev1715
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/ev/2008/00000017/00000002/art00011
    Download Restriction: downloads of articles require payment or registration of paid subscription
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nature; democracy; communication; Aristotle; Bentham; Kant; Latour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:env:journl:ev17:ev1715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrew Johnson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.whpress.co.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.