Leading and misleading metaphors : from organism to Anthropocene

Abstract

Holmes Rolston presents appreciative and critical remarks at a symposium, After the Death of Nature, held at the University of California, Berkeley, on May 2-3, 2018, celebrating the life and work of Carolyn Merchant, an ecofeminist philosopher. Rolston's remarks, under the theme: "Leading and Misleading Metaphors: From Organism to Anthropocene," recognize her insights into how the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment featured the control of nature, bringing "the death of nature." A once nurturing mother earth, became inert and mechanical, manipulated by industry and agriculture. Strident recent environmentalists have been celebrating our entering the Anthropocene Epoch, boldly embracing perpetual enlargement of the bounds of the human empire. We are urged to become planetary managers, geo-engineers, rebuilding the Earth better to serve human needs. Rolston revisits Carolyn Merchant in the prospect of an Anthropocene Epoch. This symposium launches the publication of a Festschrift on Merchant, edited by Kenneth Worthy, Elizabeth Allison, and Whitney A. Bauman, After the Death of Nature, Routledge, 2019, in which Rolston's paper is included.