DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14493863

Næss, Goethe, Calvino. Prospettive per un’estetica della natura non riduzionista

by Valeria Maggiore

The “Ecological Self” concept proposed by Arne Næss can be important to underline a discontinuity with the Galilean scientific tradition, promoting a more respectful attitude to the environment. It is an enlarged and relational identity which, metaphysically interpreting the principle of Gestaltpsychologie “the whole is more than the sum of the parts”, implies a radical rethinking of the human environment relationship in a perspective that echoes the reflections of two illustrious writers: J.W. Goethe and I. Calvino. In the novel Palomar, Calvino highlights some limits of the analytical method, which is the ground of Galilean sciences; in addition, in his scientific writings, Goethe advances a conception of Nature that anticipates ecological reflections: for him, Nature is an all-embracing whole of which every single individual is part; however, every individual can reach its auto realization by recognizing itself as part of the whole. It is a process of decentralization of the self which, underlines Næss, gives voice not to man but to the experience of Nature: it is an oxymoronic expression which indicates both a complement of possession (it is an experience proper to Nature) and a genitive case (it is the experience by which every entity, from its point of view, experiences the whole of which it is a part). The challenge posed by Næss (which fits well with the reflections of Goethe and Calvino) is that our imagination is always anthropomorphic; for this reason, our natural experience can never be neutral: it is an aesthetic experience that we experience firsthand and requires the recovery of the qualitative sphere in our relationship with the environment.

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