Published 2026-05-08
Keywords
- Myth of nature,
- Chimpanzee,
- Subject,
- Dualism
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2025 Felice Cimatti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The paper advances a critical reflection on the ‘myth of nature’, arguing that its existence is not an ecological or biological problem, but rather the result of a dualistic attitude intrinsic to the human species. This dualism originates in the act through which human beings constitute themselves as an ‘I’ (subject), in opposition to the world conceived as ‘nature’ (object). In order to demonstrate the non-universality of this conceptual scheme, the author examines the case of the chimpanzee. Lacking a conception of itself as a separate subject, the chimpanzee is not situated within the for-est but rather is the forest. It thus exemplifies a radically non-dualistic mode of being-in-the-world, in which the interpenetration of living beings and their environment is complete (“life is the Earth”), thereby revealing that the so-called problem of ‘nature’ is an exclusively human construct.
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