Living interactions
There has been, recently, a growing number of publications (books, magazines, articles), documentaries and TV programmes giving accounts of the research into the complex and fascinating interactions networking and structuring the world of living beings. As a result, there appears a universe of interdependencies, where the value of relationships seems to prevail over that of isolated organisms, and where the notion of environment is paramount. A universe where the notions of interrelations, and networking, are more relevant than those of isolation, distinction and dissection.
Against the backdrop of a world where cooperation, seemingly, prevails, some glimpse alternatives to a world based on competition. Others, or the same persons for that matter, view a repertoire of responses to pressing ecological concerns. Thus, ought we to follow, be inspired by nature? Ought we to reconcile with all the living beings on Earth and devise with them a new alliance in which humans, humbling themselves, would join the great natural symbiotic circle? This would imply to overcome the fundamental antagonisms between nature and culture, body and mind, subject and object that have structured Western thought.
In today’s context marked by acute anxieties, these questions mobilise scientific disciplines such as ecology, ethology and biology. They call upon philosophy and social sciences, which are also urged to reexamine their epistemological foundations. These questions fuel various currents of thought and justify certain militant actions.
From epistemological questioning to militant legitimization, this issue examines some aspects of this myriad of ideologies. This trans-disciplinary journey, more meandering than linear, will take us from microbiology to social sciences and philosophy. Along the way, we will see how advances in the natural sciences sometimes serve to support, like a crutch as it were, to rethink the social, in an era that misses a redeeming relational sensibility and in search of a new great unifying narrative, might it even emerge from a collapse.
Proofread by Sébastien Le Pipec