“What is the nature of the Earth?”: implications for environmental knowledge and policy

HiPhiS (History & Philosophy of Science) lecture by Sébastien Dutreuil, historian of Earth and environmental sciences, CR CNRS at the Gilles-Gaston-Granger Center (CGGG UMR 7304), Aix-Marseille.

Created in 2009, HiPhiS is an inter-university seminar organized by Montpellier universities and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Montpellier. It offers high-level scientific outreach on the interdisciplinary and philosophical issues of contemporary science, bringing together perspectives from different disciplines.

Conference summary

The Gaia concept was presented not as a simple hypothesis, but as a new conception of the Earth: this different way of seeing things was to give rise to a different way of practicing science and of considering the political and moral norms that structure our relationship with the natural world. The ontological question of the "nature of the Earth," concerning what the world is made of, was thus placed at the center of reflection. But what were the practical consequences of this priority given to ontological questions and a "global" framing of the environmental problem?
I will attempt to answer this question based on two areas:

• Gaia effects in the natural sciences: Lovelock's philosophy and politics; the constitution of Earth system sciences (Anthropocene, tipping point, etc.) and its consequences for the "climate regime";
• More recent developments within the social sciences and humanities with the emergence of environmental humanities: here too, priority has been given to the question of the nature of the Earth, with epistemological consequences that have sparked political criticism.