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Beyond the Nature-Culture Dualism

Article  in  Biology and Philosophy · March 2000

DOI: 10.1023/A:1006625830102

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 Biology and Philosophy 15: 155–175, 2000.
© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Beyond the Nature-Culture Dualism

YRJÖ HAILA
Department of Regional Studies and Environmental Policy
University of Tampere
PO Box 607
33101 Tampere, Finland

Abstract. It is commonly accepted that the western view of humanity’s place in nature is
dominated by a dualistic opposition between nature and culture. Historically this has arisen
from externalization of nature in both productive and cognitive practices; instances of such
externalization have become generalized. I think the dualism can be decomposed by identify-
ing dominant elements in each particular instantiation and showing that their strict separation
evaporates under close scrutiny. The philosophical challenge this perspective presents is to
substitute concrete socioecological analysis for foundational metaphysics. A review of major
interpretations of the history of the dualism in Western thought indicates that the legacy is
more multistranded than is usually admitted. Modern science is often assumed to lie squarely
within the dualism, but this is unfounded. In contrast, science provides tools for contextual
analysis on how human activities and natural processes merge. The dualism thus evaporates in
actual research practice. Nevertheless, the foundational metaphysics needs to be challenged,
primarily because of its paralyzing effect on environmental philosophy.

Key words: ecosocial analysis, environmental philosophy, environmentalism, nature-culture

dualism

“Culture” is often equated with all human artifact, and “nature” with the
external environment, that is, culture and nature are distinguished from each
other as if they were two separate realms of reality. This allows alternative
interpretations as to what the character of their mutual relationship is, or
should be. Culture may be viewed as an agent that actively strives for dom-
ination over nature, or as a malicious tumor that tends to grow and exceed
the limits set by nature. Nature may be regarded as a source of hardships and
catastrophs that needs to be mastered by human rational action or, alterna-
tively, as benign providence that offers advice. The common denominator of
all these varieties is that culture and nature are opposite sides in a dualism.
The culture-nature dualism is ultimately harmful and should be chal-
lenged; this is a widely accepted conclusion in recent philosophical discus-
sions on the humanity – nature relationship. There is an expanding literature
on this point within environmental ethics and environmentalism more broadly
156

which, however, cannot be reviewed in this context.1 My focus is somewhat

different: I regard the dualism as an unfounded metaphysical generalization
from experiences which humans are subjected to as material beings. Such
metaphysical foundationalism can be efficiently challenged by analyzing
concretely how human activity and natural processes merge together. My
main argument is that the assumed inevitability of the dualism needs to be
challenged because of its debilitating influence on environmentalist thought.
I think the dualism tends to be reproduced because of two main rea-
sons. First, it arises in human interactions with the world which tend to
turn into subject-object relationships. Second, these specific subject-object
relationships are generalized to a totalizing distinction between “us” and “the
environment”. Such a totalization is a cul-de-sac: there is no way of creating
an alternative view without giving rise to a new dualism. The environmentalist
literature abounds with examples, as I discuss below in more detail. However,
although a totalizing dualism cannot be challenged with a totalizing alterna-
tive, it is possible to construct context-specific alternatives demonstrating that
culture and nature belong together. This requires appropriate analytic tools –
the challenge is to develop concrete analyses of socioecological complexity.
In the next section I continue by summarizing more extensively my view
on why it is so difficult to get rid of the dualism. Then I review briefly main
interpretations of the history of the dualism. The aim is to provide material
on the variety of shapes the dualism has taken in recent interpretations of
Western intellectual history. This also gives material for “decompositions”,
that is, for tearing apart elements of the assumed dualism; this is the topic
of the fourth section. To summarize the section on decomposition, I address
the nature-culture relationship as if the dualism would not exist. This can
be achieved by substituting context-specific analyses of interactions between
human activity and natural processes for a global, all-encompassing dualism.
In the final section, I return to the question, why bother about the dualism at
all?

A pervasive dualism

The general outline of the history of the nature-culture dualism in West-

ern thought is familiar and told by numerous authors (Collingwood 1945;
Glacken 1967; Passmore 1980; Williams 1980; Smith 1984; Merchant 1990;
Haraway 1991; Plumwood 1993). There is extensive feminist scholarship on
the parallel of sex vs. gender and female vs. male with the nature-culture
dichotomy as well as anthropological research on variation in the views of
nature across cultures. The important role of the externalization and taming
 157

of nature in the modern project has been pointed out, for instance, by Lyotard
(1984), Bauman (1987) and Gellner (1988).
The dualism has a debilitating effect on the comprehension of ecological
problems; I will clarify this claim later in this section. I believe, however, that
because the nature-culture dualism is continuously produced and reproduced
by cultural processes, it cannot be discarded on its own terms. This belief is
based on two arguments.
The first argument draws upon the necessity of material interactions of
human beings with the world. In this process, nature is constituted as an
external object and turns into the environment of an utilizing subject. Nature
is objectified, and elements of nature become objects of use. The term “use”
in the preceding sentence is ambiguous, because human use is cultural appro-
priation and thus always includes an element of valuation (Arendt 1958; Ellen
1982; Ingold 1992). However, it is difficult to see how one could avoid an
objectifying perspective altogether.
The second argument draws upon the constitution of a subject that has
an identity. This is always an historical process. No subjects appear from
the void. It seems that the process of identity-formation, whether this hap-
pens on a personal or a cultural level, presupposes opposition and contrast
with an “other”. On the level of cultural identity, nature is such an “other”.2
The relationship to the “other” is asymmetric and implies domination; Plum-
wood (1993) elaborates on this point. For instance, in oppositions such as
male-female, city-country, and reason-emotion the second term is the “other”
for the first one which is the dominant term. Similarly, culture, by being
the sphere in which human historical identity is formed, is dominant to
its “other”, nature; culture becomes a “something” in opposition to “some-
thing else” which is nature (Haila 1999b).3 An analogous approach has
been adopted to the formation of consciousness and the constitution of the
mind-body problem (see Glover 1988; McGinn 1991).
These two arguments are backed by an all-pervasive shadow of Western
metaphysics. Subject-object relationships and the ensuing dualisms become
elevated to a metaphysical postulate that the subject-object dichotomy is
an essential determinant of human existence. We owe this move largely to
Descartes who drew a strict distinction between res cogitas and res extensa;
the apparent necessity as well as the inadequacy of the Cartesian dualism have
been recognized and analyzed by a number of authors (see, e.g., Heidegger
1962, pp. 122–134; Grene 1985).
Because of the metaphysical background, the nature-culture dualism gen-
erates a philosophical problem in the sense defined by Arthur Danto (1986):
“The form of a philosophical question is given . . . when indiscriminable pairs
with nevertheless distinct ontological locations may be found or imagined
158

found, and we then must make plain in what the difference consists or could
consist”. If the dualism is accepted, nature and culture constitute a pair which
matches Danto’s formula. It seems important to separate them from each
other, but they are indiscriminable. The form of this pair has varied through
history. For instance, according to Collingwood (1945, p. 7), the problem
presented itself to 18th century philosophers in the following form: “how can
mind have any connection with something utterly alien to itself, something
essentially mechanical and non-mental, namely nature?”
The form particularly relevant in ecological thinking in the era of the eco-
logical crisis is as follows: We want to know what nature allows us. To reach
an ultimate certainty we would like to distinguish between “nature by herself
as a standard” and “nature modified and polluted by humans”. This, however,
cannot be done. Humans are creatures of nature; consequently, discriminat-
ing between phenomena of nature as “natural” and phenomena of culture as
“unnatural” does not make sense at all. Furthermore, as nature changes con-
tinuously due to natural processes, the fact that human actions change nature
cannot be a diagnostic feature of their “unnaturalness” (Haila and Levins
1992; Haila 1995, 1997a). Where does the “unnaturality” of culture then
originate? If an unanswerable question is taken seriously, only declarations
of faith are left. This, indeed, happens in environmentalist fundamentalism
which is haunted by the totalitarianism of being right.4
The nature-culture dualism is a conceptual prison: it can be imagined
solved only on condition that some of the pervasive problems of Western
metaphysics can be solved. But then, why worry about the dualism at all?
This, indeed, is a way to proceed. If no universal solution to the dualism is
available on its own terms, then getting stuck with the dualism is a false start.
We can follow the line of Danto (1986) and try reformulations such that it
becomes clear why a separation of culture and nature from each other seems
important at all. Susan Oyama, for instance, has pursued this strategy in her
work (Oyama 1991). By such means the all-encompassing dualism can be
challenged.

The historical legacy

Master stories

“Ecological crisis” entered the vocabulary of Western environmentalism in

the 1960s. Many authors have tried to make the crisis intelligible by providing
an historical background. A well-known view emphasizing historical continu-
ity was formulated by Lynn White (1967) who suggested that the historical
roots of what he called “current ecological crisis” are in the Judeo-Christian
 159

religious tradition. White claimed that people’s interactions with the envi-
ronment germinate from and correspond with views of their own nature and
destiny, which are codified in religious beliefs. “Human ecology is deeply
conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny, that is, by religion”
(p. 1205). In the Judeo-Christian tradition, man was made in God’s image,
and all items of creation had the purpose of serving human aims. This cultural
pattern explains, according to White, the origin of systematic exploitation of
nature in Europe in the Middle Ages: “Man’s relation to the soil was pro-
foundly changed. Formerly, man had been part of nature; now he was the
exploiter of nature” (p. 1205). Modern science also came to be permeated by
this same spirit.
Another view emphasizing historical continuity was presented by Wil-
liam Leiss (1974): a universal impulse in the history of humanity underlying
current destruction of nature is “the domination of nature”. Leiss’ book
was based on his interpretation of Nietzsche, Husserl, the philosophical
anthropology of Max Scheler and the social theory of the Frankfurt School,
particularly Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. According to Leiss, the
need for domination arose from human pratical needs to master the surround-
ing world and turned into a basic feature of human existence. Reason, the
differentia specifica of human beings compared with other organisms, was
born from the tendency to dominate nature. Fellow human beings and society
as a whole turned into objects of domination which also became the driving
force of the development of science and technology. Leiss thus attempted
to naturalize domination of nature by presenting it as an anthropological con-
stant. Nevertheless, he also recognized that the Modern era in Europe brought
about a critical shift in the relationship between humanity and nature, albeit
as a stage in a long historical development.
Carolyn Merchant (1990) focused on the break in views of nature that
occurred, according to her interpretation, in the early Modern age. The critical
shift was from representing nature as an organic whole to representing nature
as a passive object of exploitation; “the image of an organic cosmos with
a living female earth at its center gave way to a mechanistic world view in
which nature was reconstructed as dead and passive, to be dominated and con-
trolled by humans” (Preface to the 1990 edition, p. xvi). The transition began
in the extraction of mineral ores and expanded later into the exploitation of
living nature in forestry and agriculture. It was codified in Bacon’s dictum
“knowledge is power” and in the Cartesian view of the world as a mechanical
machine. Decisive, in Merchant’s view, was the shift in worldview described
in the citation above.
The interpretations of White, Leiss and Merchant imply that societies’
views of nature can explain human behaviour toward nature. However, White
160

and Leiss do not spell out how this causality actually functions. Merchant’s
view seems to be that a metaphoric view of nature becomes a causal factor
by being an integrating core in people’s beliefs about their proper place in
the world (“The power of the organic metaphor derived from the unifying
structure it imposed on social and cosmic reality.” Merchant 1990, p. 69).
The assumption that structures of belief influence or even determine people’s
actions is quite plausible, of course, but the role allocated to views of nature in
such structures by Merchant is something that should be shown, not assumed.
The totalizing tendency also creates problems for historical narratives. It
is difficult to determine at which point an all-encompassing attitude changes.
Has, for instance, the strive for the “domination of nature” been the same
throughout history, or has it changed? Has it changed completely, or has it
changed only in detail? What are the criteria for telling the difference? Leiss
(1974) remains squarely inside such an ambiguity by writing, with reference
to “the idea of conquering nature” (p. xiii): “. . . its function changes dramat-
ically in the course of its reign”. Apparently the idea “itself” has remained
the same despite such dramatic changes in “its function”. A further problem,
pointed out by Passmore (1980), is that “domination of nature” and “sub-
ordination to nature” have thrived simultaneously through most of human
history. How can “domination” explain its own success by its mere existence?
(see also Arendt 1958, p. 139).

Succession of metaphors

These totalizing histories of views of nature contrast with nuanced narratives

based on detailed history of ideas. Williams (1983) reviewed the etymology
of the term “nature”. The term referred originally to the essential quality and
character of something; it was the internal organizing principle of either all
material entities, which each one separately had their particular natures, or
an inherent force directing the world as a unified entity. These were the main
interpretations in pre-modern Europe. It was only in the early modern era that
the term got the meaning “external reality” that it has today. But as Williams
(1980) showed, the externalized nature was not just found out there, but it
has been envisaged through a series of metaphoric visions. In the modern era
between the Elizabethan times and the 20th century, nature was successively
viewed as an “absolute monarch”, a “constitutional lawyer” and a “selective
breeder”.
Collingwood (1945) also composed his history of the idea of nature
around structuring metaphors. In Antiquity, nature was viewed as an intel-
ligent organism; regularities observed in the natural world were thus made
comprehensible. The organismic metaphor underlay such neo-Platonist doc-
trines as the Principle of Plenitude and the Great Chain of Being, which were
 161

influential up to the modern era (Lovejoy 1936). Following the Renaissance,

this organismic view of nature gave way to the metaphor of a machine which
explained the intelligent order in nature by laws that nature obeyed, although
these still had a divine origin. In the Modern era, the mechanistic view was
modified to include the possibility, or even inevitability, of progress through
evolution produced by the laws of nature.
In most stages, the nature-culture dualism has existed side by side
with views emphasizing nature as a norm of both individual human con-
duct and the organization of society as a whole (Lovejoy 1948). This was
restrengthened by Romanticism which was heavily indebted to neo-Platonist
and Christian theological traditions (Lovejoy 1936).
In conclusion, a belief in an unilinear tradition in views of nature seems
less plausible than a view emphasizing discontinuities and breaks. The views
of nature and of the relationship between humanity and nature have been very
variably founded in the past, as also becomes manifest through the meticulous
uncovering of original sources by Clarence Glacken (1967).

A material background?

An apparently objective foundation for the nature-culture dualism leans on

a view that nature sets strict material limits to human existence. This line
of thought was given a systematic formulation by Thomas Malthus in his
essay on population, originally published in 1798. In Malthusian thinking,
humans simultaneously belong to nature and are in opposition with nature,
because of their unlimited capacity to increase and the limited capacity of
nature to sustain them. Malthus thus formulated “a natural law upon man”
(Young 1985). As Glacken (1967, p. 373) pointed out, Malthus summed up
an idea that began to germinate in the post-conquest era from the 16th century
on, namely, that the earth is a “closed space”.
If nature indeed sets to human activities firm limits which humans con-
tinuously tend to exceed, then there is a material opposition between nature
and culture. Current neo-Malthusianism is straightforward in this regard. The
contradiction is mainly expressed through population growth which pushes
human societies into recurring violations against the productive capacity of
the environment. Proponents of the “population bomb” thinking of the era of
the environmental crisis are very dogmatic about this point (Ehrlich 1968). In
their opinion, everything is determined by the human population size. Not
only food shortages, but the total human impact on the biosphere can be
estimated and comprehended by multiplying the impact per capita by the total
number of people (Ehrlich 1993).
The Malthusian claim that the amount of food has been an actual con-
straint on human well-being in 18th century England, as well as today, is often
162

presented as a brute fact, but actually it is a deduction. This is revealed by the

genealogy of the Malthusian argument. Malthus derived his inspiration from
contemporary political economy. According to Karl Polanyi (1944), the ori-
ginator of the idea of nature’s limits was William Townsend who constructed
the example of goats and dogs on Robinson Crusoe’s island as an imaginary
demonstration of the conflict between population growth and the amount of
food – in modern terms, carrying capacity. The deduction was used to make
a social fact, pauperism in England in the 18th century, comprehensible by
way of a “natural limit” by turning the deduction upside down: a part of the
English population starved because it was not possible to produce enough
food.5 Today’s neo-Malthusianism leans on assumptions concerning the ulti-
mate limits of the earth’s carrying capacity, but the structure of the deduction
has not changed. The possibilities of food production and distribution on the
global scale today are opaque as were the possibilities for food production
and distribution in 18th century England.6 Malthusianism has always been an
ideological doctrine (Young 1985; Taylor and García-Barrios 1997).
The Malthusian argument that nothing can go on growing infinitely in a
finite space is, of course, correct. However, this is an abstract argument that
cannot legitimately be reversed to the form: if something stops growing that
is because its space has been used up. The limits of space become visible only
in very specific circumstances that are usually constructed,7 or in imaginary
experiments as in William Townsend. The force of the general argument
about limits stems from its being backed by a metaphysical belief that all
entities are bounded by limits.8 Indeed, the Malthusian argument is “meta-
physical” in the technical sense in which Popper used the term: the argument
cannot be refuted. The metaphysics of limits is one more background to the
dualism of external and internal (Levins 1998).9

A multifaceted legacy

Overall, the historical legacy of views of the culture-nature relationship is

much more heterogeneous and multilayered than unilinear interpretations
would let us believe. Such interpretations represent a kind of “reversed
Whiggishness”: the current ecological crisis is taken as such an existential
shock that it must have deep roots in human history, and such roots are then
constructed. A counterpart to this Whiggishness is to look for salvation in
history as, for instance, Merchant tends to do with the presumed “organis-
mic community” of the pre-modern era. The following claim is nothing but
an unrealistic idealization (Merchant 1990, p. 49): “In many parts of inland
Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, and Saxony, an ecologically and commun-
ally healthy peasant society continued to flourish as late as 1945, retaining its
traditional character and keeping the soil in a fertile condition”.
 163

A primary implication of the historical legacy is that shifts have occurred

in the historical relationship between humanity and nature, and the shifts
have been multistranded, not attributable to single determinants. Important
factual elements in the history have been uncovered, but most generalizations
about the relationship are embedded in an ideological matrix which usually is
grounded in unarticulated background metaphysics. This network of histor-
ical detail, doubtful generalizations and foundational metaphysics needs to
be torn apart to allow a new assesment of the assumed totalitarianism of the
nature-culture dualism.

Decompositions

Preliminary distinctions

The array of historical interpretations I discussed above provides material

for weakening the totalizing grip of the nature-culture dualism. Once this is
achieved, one can start analyzing separately specific factors that constitute the
relationship between humanity and nature in specific situations. The relation-
ship is composed of a multitude of interactions between human agents and
the world.10 The contexts of such interactions range from material necessities
of subsistence to cultural, ethical and esthetic valuations of elements in what
is perceived as the “environment”. In each context, there are tensions between
the necessities and valuations of individuals and of the community, between
the individual and the collective spheres.
Whether drawing a distinction between “nature” and “culture” seems
compelling at all varies from case to case. For instance, it may seem natural
that corn is grown on the floodplains of Missisippi, and it may seem natural
that the security of this agriculture is improved by regulating the river, but
when the predictable flooding “unexpectedly” sets in, the whole enterprise
appears to have been totally unnatural. In the case of Missisippi flooding, such
a distinction between natural and unnatural seems necessary with hindsight,
but what about agriculture in regions with no flooding?
The nature-culture dualism is hardened particularly because it is a gen-
eralization from various specific cases in which the attributes “natural” and
“unnatural” apparently define distinct alternatives for social practices. How-
ever, such cases are heterogeneous, and this heterogeneity itself provides a
warning that the dualism may not be one but many, constructed in every
instantiation anew albeit from common materials. This, I think, is indeed the
case. Moreover, the composition and structure of the materials have varied
enormously through history. It is not quite obvious whether “nature” has been
the same in different cultures except in the abstract sense of being outside
164

each culture, and in the even more abstract sense of being part of the same
physical reality.
The path toward decomposition can be opened by identifying dominant
elements in each particular instantiation of the dualism and demonstrating
that the generalization is unfounded. I suspect that this cannot be achieved
in general because of the multiplicity of elements of which the polarity of
culture and nature consists in different situations. However, in historically
specified contexts it may be possible, to cite Arthur Danto, to make plain
“what the difference between the polarities consists or could consist of” (see
Section 2 above).

The riddle of modern science

Modern science has provided support for an important element in the mod-
ern conception of nature, namely the metaphysics of unity and universality
(Smith 1984). These are modern doctrines which took shape in the aftermath
of the Newtonian revolution in the natural sciences and obtained full force in
the 19th century (Koyré 1965; Mandelbaum 1971; Foucault 1970). It seems
that two particular processes were important in the period preceeding the
Newtonian revolution: the externalization of nature as an object of know-
ledge in the cognitive sphere, and the externalization of nature as a resource
in the practical sphere. Both of these processes rest on the presupposition
that nature is a unified and ordered whole obeying a set of identifiable laws
which can be formulated in the language of mathematics. Bacon legitimized
the view that cognition and exploitation belong together, but Descartes is a
particularly important background figure because of his contribution to the
methodological development of modern science.11
The metaphysics of unity is thus backed by modern science. This may
explain the important role allocated to science in environmentalist inter-
pretations of the ideological background of the ecological crisis. The critical
question is, are modern science and technology necessarily committed to the
nature-culture dualism? If they are, then it seems necessary to establish a
totally different kind of knowledge that brings about a break with the dom-
inant traditions of modern science. This view is widespread (see Merchant
1992), but problematic. What does it really mean to establish a totally new
kind of knowledge? To demonstrate this ambiguity I cite the following char-
acterization given by Merchant (1989) of the contrast between what she calls
ecological (new) and mechanistic (old) paradigms:

The assumptions of the ecological paradigm contrast with those of the

mechanistic, resting on a different set of assumptions about nature: (1)
everything is connected to everything else in an integrated web; (2) the
 165

whole is greater than the sum of the parts; (3) nonhuman nature is active,
dynamic, and responsive to human actions; (4) process, not parts, is
primary; and (5) people and nature are a unified whole.

This list of characteristics is a strange mixture of claims which have a

variable status relative to modern science. The first (“integrated web”) lies
squarely within modern science by drawing upon cybernetics which, para-
doxically, is among the most domination-oriented research traditions of the
20th century (Haraway 1981–82). The second (“holism”) draws upon a theo-
retical countercurrent in modern science which, if understood dogmatically,
is debilitated by the dualism of external and internal (Levins 1998). The
third (“nature is responsive”) is a general statement nobody would probably
disagree with; as a matter of fact, this was the dominant paradigm at the influ-
ential biology department of the University of Chicago between the 1920s and
1950s (Mitman 1992). The fourth (“process is primary”) is a methodological
maxim accepted in modern science since the breakthrough of thermodynam-
ics in physics (1880s), and population dynamics in ecology (1920s). The fifth
(“unified whole”) is a declaration of faith.
Maybe there has once been a “mechanistic paradigm” that would have
denied the assumptions included in Merchant’s list, but whether this is true
or not, the contrast seems largely irrelevant today. The assumed dichotomy
between ecological paradigm and mechanistic paradigm is described in such a
way that it does not have any close resonance with current scientific thinking.
Consequently, it does not have practical import for developing a new kind of
knowledge either.
This implies, I believe, that a postulate that a dichotomy exists and is
important is primary in Merchant’s interpretation of what she describes as
a “contrast of paradigms”, and specific characterizations of the dichotomy
are secondary. This is a reification of scientific paradigms. Science is not
just a cognitive structure but it is primarily practical action exerted within a
heterogeneous web of ties and constraints (Hacking 1983; Pickering 1992; on
ecology, Haila and Levins 1992; Taylor 1997). Accordingly, I believe that the
roots of the worry about the “contrast of paradigms” are not actually within
scientific thinking, but they are to be found elsewhere.
At least two contexts can be distinguished in which Merchant’s descrip-
tion of the contrast of views within science can be fruitfully evaluated. One
is the understanding of rationality in social praxis. A shift occurred in the
dominant mode of rationality in the early modern era. The post-renaissance
scientific revolutions were integrally connected with this shift. What Mer-
chant describes as a “contrast of paradigms” is actually a reflection of the
contrast between what Max Weber called instrumental rationality (Zweckra-
tionalität) and substantive rationality (Wertrationalität), shifted into the realm
166

of views of nature (see Habermas 1970; Marcuse 1988; Haila and Levins
1992, pp. 110–113). Thus, arguments concerning the “contrast of paradigms”
ought to be formulated on the level of different types of rationality.
A comment on the meaning of “rationality” in this context. Gellner (1992)
argued that rationality can be viewed as an ideal type which does not have
ultimate foundations, but gives potential rules and procedures to be followed
in conflict situations. Rationality cannot be context-free in general, but it can
approach specified contexts from the outside. I think Gellner’s argument is
fruitful for elaborating the relationship between rationality and nature. Thus,
for instance, various analytic tools can be employed to bring different kinds of
values into decisions concerning nature use, although the tools cannot decide
among the values.
Another context for evaluating the “conflict of paradigms” is constituted
by the actual ties that influence the shape and direction of scientific research.
Practical ties, that is connections with contemporary crafts and industries,
were important in the formation of early modern science, as is commonly
recognized nowadays. The ethos of modern science originated in this prac-
tical and social sphere as well, the ethos did not arise as an “internal”
paradigm of science. This, however, implies a paradox concerning Merchant’s
view: the modern ethos of science grew out of the very practices that are
glorified in her interpretation as a counterforce to the ethos.
These two contexts of viewing modern science, the type of rationality on
which it is based and the social practices in which it is enmeshed, allow fruit-
ful approaches for specifying what the alternative paradigms in science could
be. The dualism constructed by Merchant can thus be decomposed when it is
located within these problem areas.12

Other paths toward decomposition

Traditions within scientific thinking form an important domain in which the

nature-culture dualism becomes manifest and needs to be decomposed in
specific ways. In addition, I suggest two other approaches toward decom-
posing the dualism. The purpose is, again, to provide contexts for explicating
assumed main polarities in each formulation of the dualism.
The first approach continues from what was said about types of rationality
above. Prevailing rationality is tied to prevailing social praxis. This claim
seems indisputable, but allows two alternative interpretations: either there is
a hegemonic type of rationality that influences and dominates all practices
throughout the society, or rationalities in different practices are constituted
(partially) independently of each other. The previous alternative is close to
the original view of Max Weber and the pessimistic culture criticism of the
Frankfurt School.13
 167

However, the second alternative seems more compelling; for instance,

there is a link between gender roles and types of rationality as emphasized
by feminist scholars (Keller 1985). John Dryzek (1983, 1987) has argued
that there are several alternative grounds for rationality in different social
spheres – for instance, economy, law, social affairs, and use of the environ-
ment – and these may conflict with each other. But this implies that similar
differentiation might be true concerning different fields or segments of social
practice as well. A broad array of arguments could be evoked to support
this assumption, ranging from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s language games and
Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelian ethics to Talcott Parson’s functionalism
and Niklas Luhmann’s systemic social theories, but in this connection it is
sufficient to point out the possibility. It is by no means certain that all social
practices are tightly bound to a shared type of rationality.
Indeed, one important source of variation can be readily named: different
practices connect to different elements of nature. Aqua/culture is different
from agri/culture is different from silvi/culture. Although each one of these
“cultures” is practiced in the same social context, specific rules and norms of
dealing with their respective natural realms vary. For instance, farming and
forestry everywhere are based on different social structures and networks,
and their mutual relationship varies across countries. An analysis of such
differences might reveal important general features in how the conception
of nature is shaped within social practices.
A possible conceptual approach toward this goal might be to break both
nature and culture into parts in specified situations. Nature consists of a
hierarchically organized set of processes which are locally and temporarily
stabilized. Human activities are in contact with a restricted set of such pro-
cesses at any one time. Culture, on the other hand, might be profitably
broken into parts by drawing distinctions between “social practices” (for a
specified suggestion, see MacIntyre 1985) which have relatively independent
connections with their natural background. This is discussed in the case of
agriculture and health at some length by Haila and Levins (1992). Distin-
guishing social practices from each other allows a socially and historically
imaginative and sensitive view about how human activity and natural pro-
cesses merge together and how this interpenetration can be analyzed; I have
used the concept of “ecosocial complex” elsewhere (Haila 1998).
Another path toward decomposing the nature-culture dualism can be
built upon a historical perspective. A distinction between “first nature” and
“second nature” might give a conceptual tool for this purpose (Smith 1984;
Dyke 1988, 1994; Cronon 1991). The former term refers to such elements in
the world that have originated without human influence – this, by and large,
is the physical background of culture. The latter term refers to such elements
168

in the world that have originated from previous human activities. Second
nature includes not only material structures, such as transportation routes,
cities, and technological systems, but also social and cognitive structures, for
instance financial connections (Dyke 1988; Cronon 1991). First nature and
second nature form historically unique combinations in different situations
and cannot be separated from each other: where, then, is the nature-culture
dualism?
This gives rise to a Braudelian view of the flow of the historical rela-
tionships between nature and culture (Haila and Levins 1992). Comparative
history of civilizations suggest that different elements shaping societies
change at different rates leading to variation among civilizations (Braudel
1984, see also Wolf 1982). In other words, elements of nature and elements
of culture interpenetrate in different ways in different historical situations,
and a single, all-encompassing dualism disappears. In this vein, for example,
Haila and Levins (1992, pp. 202–204) discussed the European Middle Ages.

Contextual socioecology instead of a global dualism

Contextuality is a common denominator among the paths toward decomposi-
tion of the nature-culture dualism I have outlined in the preceding sections.
This stimulates the following proposition: when specified human actions are
considered, sharpening contextuality makes it possible that general schemas
such as the nature-culture dualism loose their grip and fade into the back-
ground. A useful tool for this purpose is socioecological analysis, but I leave
this topic to a programmatic statement in this context (see Taylor 1992, 1999;
Haila 1998, 1999a).
The goal applies to all spheres of human activity. For instance, thinking
is a form of practice in which a subject-object relationship is inherent: some-
body thinks about something. John Dewey gave a succint formulation for
this view as follows (Dewey 1929, p. 58) “. . . thinking is no different in kind
from the use of natural materials and energies, say fire and tools, to refine,
re-order, and shape other natural materials, say ore”. As long as thinking is
understood as universal activity not tied to place and time, but asymptotically
approaching laws of eternal reason, the inherent subject-object relationship
strengthens and is strengthened by the metaphysics of dualisms. However,
when thinking is situated, thinking becomes interaction, and the universal
metaphysics is challenged.
Historical imagination facilitates such a move toward contextuality. Mar-
jorie Grene has taken stands with the dualism from a historical perspective as
follows (Grene 1978):
Admittedly, the distinction between nature and culture is a commonplace:
I am trying to introduce it here, however, not as a simple dichotomy, but as
 169

an internal relation essential in its integrity to the being of human beings

. . . . It is our nature to need the artificial; we come to ourselves not only
as users of, but as dwellers within, a tightly woven net of artifacts.
The artificial is what constitutes the world of human beings, and thus
human beings themselves. As Hannah Arendt emphasized, it is actually not
“pure Nature” that human beings are faced with, but rather the artificial
created by previous human actions: “(A)gainst the subjectivity of men stands
the objectivity of the man-made world rather than the sublime indifference
of an untouched nature” (Arendt 1956, p. 137). The “artificial” is natural
by being an essential element of human nature, but it is also different from
nature by being human-made. Similar to “first nature” and “second nature”,
these dimensions are irretrievably woven together.
Marjorie Grene in the citation above emphasized the subject-centeredness
of culture/ nature interactions. The interactions are not eternally “out there”,
they are created by human agency. This might be generalized: Maybe
acknowledging the action-dependence and context-specificity of the artificial
is a fruitful starting point for decomposing the nature-culture dualism. Arti-
ficiality is always, by definition, situated. It exists naturally once it has been
created by human actors in the specific milieus of their action and constrains
those specific milieus from further actions.

Why worry about views of nature?

My basic argument concerning the nature-culture dualism has two elements:
the dualism is continuously reproduced on the level of ideology and philo-
sophy, but it can be disintegrated on the level of context-specific analysis.14
This raises the following question: Why does it seem useful to bother about
the dualism at all? Why not just live happily with the dualism on the
ideological level, and let it dissolve by itself in specific contexts?
A standard environmentalist answer is that the dualism supports destruc-
tive methods of dealing with nature – consequently, views of nature must be
developed that are not tied to the dualism. The problem with this argument is,
What does it exactly mean that a view of nature is “new”? If a “new” view of
nature is defined entirely in opposition to an “old” one, either a new dualism
is created or the assumed new is actually within the old.
I think it is primarily a belief in the inevitability of the dualism that needs
to be challenged. Such a belief has a paralyzing effect on environmentalist
thinking by triggering a search for alternatives on too broad a scale. Mer-
chant’s (1989) view of contrasting paradigms in science, that I cited above,
serves as an example.
It is fruitful to clarify the background metaphysics in which the dualism
is based, otherwise their postulates are naturalized into common sense. The
170

dominant Western metaphysics of nature seem to include two major pos-

tulates, first, the unity and uniformity of nature, and second, the Cartesian
separation between “I” versus “the world”. It seems to me that there is a
tension between these postulates. We can get hold of the tension by asking,
what is the location of the divide between the Cartesian “I” and “the world”
(i. e., nature) in a uniform material world?
The locations can be envisaged by using three basic metaphors. Two of
them are situated, as it were, within four-dimensional space-time coordinates,
namely, a metaphor of “nature out there” (spatial), and a metaphor of “nature
preceding” (temporal). The third one is more difficult to situate; it is a meta-
phor of “nature inside”. There seems to be a crucial difference between the
first two metaphors and the third one. Relative to the two first metaphors the
location of the nature/culture boundary appears unproblematic. If nature is
outside of the cultural sphere, then the boundary is where cultural influence
ends. If nature was before the cultural sphere, then the boundary is where cul-
ture began. Neither of these boundaries is empirically definable but they can
be conceptually constructed. As a matter of fact, much confusion in modern
environmental thinking stems from a belief that these boundaries can actually
be defined: this is the belief in virgin nature (e.g., Williams 1980; Lehtinen
1991; Haila and Levins 1992; Haila 1997b).
Relative to the third metaphor, in contrast, the very idea of a boundary
dissolves. In fact, nature inside is an alien notion to the view of human
individuals as autonomous rational actors, and human culture as the result
of rational action(s), adopted in the modern era in the West. Blows have been
given to this basic belief, for instance, by post-Freudian psychology in the
shape of the unconscious, viewed as an internal nature that inevitably breaks
through to the consious level. Similar blows come also from social thinking.
René Girard (1977) has argued that nature resides in the guise of mimetic
violence inside the human society and is constantly threatening to tear it apart.
Nature within is represented by all factors that cannot be brought under the
control of human rational action. Nevertheless, a major ingredient in modern
Western metaphysics is to deny that such factors exist at all.15
A straightforward naturalism cannot solve the problem. Nature is ulti-
mately “strange” for humans by not being in the least interested in human
destinies whereas humans are obliged to care for nature (Passmore 1980);
in particular, nature inside us is frighteningly strange. Why should nature,
after all, be benign to human beings? This frightfull strangeness cannot be
tamed.16 Nature’s frightening strangeness supports the contention that ulti-
mately a humanity/ nature dichotomy and contrast is unavoidable. The point,
however, is that the strangeness of nature is part of the strangeness of human
 171

existence. No efforts at taming and conquering of, or domination over nature

can remove this existential fact.17
These tensions within Western metaphysics of nature strengthen the con-
clusion I have drawn above: instead of assuming at the outset that humanity
and nature form two distinct realms of reality, we ought to view them as merg-
ing into situated, historically and contextually specified complexes. Then, the
assumed fixed boundary between “I” and “the world” looses meaning.
The ecologist can explore the interaction and interpenetration of human
practices and natural processes in particular cases, and construct models
that can be temporarily bounded and stabilized. Such models can clarify the
constraints that natural processes determine to human activities. In this way,
ecological knowledge can become increasingly relevant for understanding the
natural conditions of human existence. Other scholars with other capabilities
can explore the relationships between humanity and nature from other per-
spectives. This constitutes a collective, analytic enterprise, not a mere leap of
faith. Perhaps a nuanced, multistranded and historically imaginative picture
of culture, nature and their interactions will emerge as time goes by.

Notes
1 As a matter of fact, the dualism is reproduced within environmentalist thinking as the well-
known polarity between biocentrism and anthropocentrism.
2 The “other” had a prominent position particularly in Hegel’s philosophy (Phenomenology of
the Spirit), and in Nietzsche. For an elaboration of the concept in an anthropological context,
see McGrane (1989), and in a psychological context, Glover (1988). Hegel did not apply the
concept to nature because in his view nature was “one phase in a real process which is leading
to the existence of mind”, i. e., simply the external world (Collingwood 1945, p. 130).
3 The order of the dominance is often reversed in environmentalist thinking: the “real” dom-
inant is nature and human culture will get revenged for its arrogance in thinking otherwise.
The underlying logic of “otherness” remains intact, however.
4 See Merchant (1992) for a review which, to a certain extent, is vulnerable to the same
spectre. This totalitarianism occurs in, for instance, deep ecology as a complete polarity
between “ecological thinking” and all other ways of thinking.
5 Townsend discussed the example in his Dissertation on the Poor Laws (1786) and ended
up with the following conclusion: “It is the quantity of food which regulates the number
of the human species” (Polanyi 1944). As Polanyi noted, the factuality of the example is
questionable, but “the paradigm is not dependent on empirical support” (p. 113).
6 A major source of confusion at present is the use of global averages in statistics on food
production and nutritional condition of people. A finer scale of resolution shows that political
and economic factors play a major role in the trends, not physical or biological limits to soil
productivity (Dyson 1996).
7 When, for instance, Paramecium are grown in a laboratory tank in constant conditions as in
the classic experiments by Gause (1934). In nature such “pure” situations are rare and found
for example on islands where a prey and a predator population are confined, e. g., moose and
wolves on Isle Royal in Lake Superior (see Taylor 1984). This does not mean that “carrying
172

capacity” would be a useless notion, but it is an abstract notion readily reified (Levins and
Lewontin 1985; Haila and Levins 1992).
8 This is particularly true of scientific thinking: bounding the problem equals constructing a
boundary around the object of research (Dyke 1985). When such practical decisions are reified
into an ontological truth about reality, metaphysics of the limit gain credibility.
9 In fact, “limit” is a normative concept; neo-Malthusian thinking is thus directly rooted in
the metaphysics of the nature – culture dualism. I owe this connection to a comment by Lasse
Peltonen.
10 “Interaction” is a partially misleading term in this context by implying a reference to
elements that are only externally related to each other; a more adequate term would be “inter-
penetration” (Levins and Lewontin 1985). Thus, for instance, important regularities in natural
processes are, as it were, “internalized” by society (Haila and Levins 1992).
11 Passmore (1980), in particular, emphasized the role of Descartes in laying the basis for the
objectification of nature in research and exploitation. An often cited passage from Descartes’
Discourse on method draws a parallel between knowing the forces and actions of nature and
the different crafts of artisans and ends with the following coda: “. . . and thus render ourselves
the masters and possessors of nature” (Passmore 1980, p. 20).
12 In fact, the ongoing transition from linear to nonlinear thinking in science bears some
resemblance with Merchant’s contrast of paradigms, and is certainly relevant from the point
of nature – culture dualism (Dyke 1997).
13 The main manifesto of such cultural pessimism is Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max
Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno (The German original was published in 1944); William
Leiss’ (1974) elaboration of the necessity of “domination of nature” drew heavily upon this
particular work. Stephen Vogel (1996) has recently shown that this is based on a factual
acceptance of a (Hegelian) form of the basic dualism: nature is seen as the Other of reason and
it “strikes back”.
14 Besides, in human material practices nature and culture are necessarily mixed together in
concrete contexts.
15 A countercurrent in this regard can be distinguished in Western literary history, however;
William Connolly (1993) identified one manifestation in the Book of Job.
16 The commercial and media success of dinosaurs draws upon the point that if there still
were them on the earth, there would be no space for us. Similar frightening perspectives can
also be stimulated by viruses, for instance, by AIDS.
17 Hannah Arendts The Human Condition (Arendt 1958) contains perceptive considerations
of this point.

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