Lingua ac communitas ISSN 1230-3143 vol.

20 2010 13–36

Korpikiewicz Honorata, Dereniowska Małgorzata

Listening to Anima Mundi: The Organic Metaphor in

the Cosmoecological Perspective

We are of the universe – there is no inside, no outside… Meeting each moment, being alive to the
possibilities of becoming, is an ethical call, an invitation that is written into the very matter of all being
and becoming. We need to meet the universe half-away, to take responsibility for the role that we play
in the world’s differential becoming

– Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe halfway. Quantum

Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.

Introduction

In ancient Greece, philosophers were searching for logos – a “rational pattern to the
world”. This logos had been sought in the perfect order of Heavens. As a conse‑
quence of this idea it was concluded that the real and perfect world is unavailable
for us. By “turning our attention away from our bodies, and from the body of the
earth, the rational gaze was directed upward, toward the stars, and inward, toward
a pure mental order. Thus the Greek search for logos became a quest for a very
particular type of order – one that was distant, regular, immutable and certain”.1
From that perspective, a particular conceptualization of rationality arises. For Plato,
knowledge of things obtained through the sensible world is highly questionable.
Moreover, according to the prevailing view it would seem that “by defining reality
as the rational – and identifying rationality with the regular, immmutable, and
certain – the reality of the sensuous world has denigrated”.2 As a result, earthly 13
and visible nature has been perceived as non-rational.3
At the same time, the image of the Earth as a living organism has been present
in philosophical investigations since ancient times. In Timaeus Plato describes

1 R. Frodeman, Philosophy in the Field, in: B.V. Foltz, R. Frodeman (eds.), Rethinking Nature: Essays in
Environmental Philosophy, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004, p. 149 – 150.
2 Ibidem, p. 150.
3 P. Macnaghten, J. Urry, Alternatywne przyrody. Nowe myślenie o przyrodzie i społeczeństwie.
Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe SCHOLAR, 2005, p. 26. Nowadays the terms of the long-standing
denigration include, for instance, Feminine, Other, Oriental, and Animal.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

the cosmos as a Living Creature, “that whole which encompasses within itself all
intelligible living beings, just as this world is made up of us and all other visible be‑
ings. For by choosing as his model the most beautiful of intelligible beings, perfect
and complete, the god made the world a single, visible, living being, containing
within itself all living beings that are naturally akin to it”.4 The so called soul of the
world animates all existing matter. The system of unity in multiplicity is reflected
in the analogy between the macrocosms (universe) and the microcosms (human
body), in which the mind is the most important part, a ray of the World Soul.5
Using David Fideler’s words, “in a body of the living universe, animated by the
World Soul, all parts are interrelated through the power of sympathy and by the
fact that the manifest cosmos is itself rooted in the Nour (Mind/Being), which
is a dynamical system of unity-in-multiplicity”.6
The relation between the human soul and the World Soul (anima mundi)
is full of a natural sympathy. This relationship is interwoven with the faculty
of reason. In the Middle Ages this metaphor has been popular, in particular,
within Neoplatonic circles. Fideler emphasizes the works of Porphyry, for whom
“self-knowledge was inherently connected with the Neoplatonic conception of the
kinship between the human soul and the World Soul (anima mundi), its wisdom
(sophia) and intellect (nous)”.7 However, this organic way of perceiving the world
has been substituted and at some point even denied by the mechanical one dur‑
ing the scientific revolution of Enlightenment. It can be seen in works of people
such as Galileo, Francis Bacon, and René Descartes. Within the mechanical view,
the whole universe has been perceived as a machine whose elements work and
are in relation to each other similar to the gears of a clock. Mechanistic view as‑
sumes that “the whole of nature, including the Earth and all her […] inhabitants,
is no more than a dead machine to be exploited as we wish for our own benefit,
without let or hindrance”.8 In other words the clockwork of the universe did not
leave room for the world soul.
Using these metaphors, we can recognize the competing character of the me‑
14 chanical and the organic. As Fideler notes, “nothing could be further from the

4 Plato, Timaeus and Critias, trans. R. Waterfield, New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2008, p.
19 (30c).
5 For a detail analysis see: N. El-Bizri, “Microcosm/Macrocosm Analogy: A Tentative Encounter
Between Graeco-Arabic Philosophy and Phenomenology”, in: Tymieniecka A. T. (ed.), Islamic Philosophy
and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of The Microcosm and Macrocosm, Netherlands:
Springer, 2006, p. 3 – 23
6 D. Fideler, Neoplatonism and the Cosmological Revolution: Holism, Fractal Geometry, and Mind in
Nature,” in: idem, The Order and Beauty of Nature, Michigan: Phanes Press, 1997, p. 141.
7 El-Bizri, p. 6.
8 Harding, p. 19.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

Neoplatonic vision of the living universe than the mechanistic cosmology of the
Scientific Revolution, which emerged from the first great cosmological revolu‑
tion of the Western world”.9 This allows us to distinguish two views of the uni‑
verse: anima mundi and machina mundi.10 However, the contradiction between
them might have a superficial character. We shall argue that, after the revision
and examination of the common assumptions on the nature of nature (and the
universe), these two perspectives can be to some extent compatible, or at least
not inconsistens. Even though they are irreducible to one another, they are not
transcendental convertible.
One of the important aspects connected with the image of the living universe
is its association with primitivism, based on the assumption that the achieve‑
ments of scientific and technological civilization predispose us to a higher degree
of knowing the world. However, the point is that the organic perspective cannot
be grasped from only within the mechanical framework of reference. As it will be
shown with reference to Aldo Leopold, the recognition of the living character‑
istics of the universe can be understood as a moment of illumination. That is, it
is a revelation that reveals and communicates the hidden voice of anima mundi. It
is more available and achievable within immediate, perceptual experience rather
than on the grounds of the rational investigation. As Weiner points out, “Perhaps
this thinking is not primitive at all, since the ancient and modern lines of thought
sometimes seem to be bending to meet, like the two ends of a hoop. The idea has
arisen many times in the history of science. Often it strikes an investigator who has
just seen more deeply than ever before into the workings of the planet”.11 Indeed,
this topic of concern became a cornerstone of the critique of the mechanistic
model in science.
As a consequence of being taken for granted, the exclusivism of a mecha‑
nistic view of the world and the universe not only denied an existence of the
soul of the world (understood as a metaphor) but as a consequence it scalped
nature from its living elements. Schelling associates this approach with the
post-Cartesian notion of clockwork, where nature is subordinate to humans’ 15
ends: “the entire new European philosophy since its beginning (with Descartes)
has the common defect that nature is not available for it and it lacks a living
9 Fideler, p. 141.
10 The expression machina mundi, related to the universe, appeared in 1565 in the works of Nicholas
of Cusa. Quoted by: H.  Grossman, “Descartes and the Social Origins of the Mechanistic Concept
of theWorld”, in: G. Freudenthal and P. McLaughlin (eds.), The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific
Revolution. Texts by Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 278),
New York: Springer, 2009, p. 199.
11 J. Weiner, The Next One Hundred Years: Shaping the Fate of Our Living Earth, New York, Toronto,
London, Sydney, Auckland: Bantam Books, 1990, p. 191.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

ground”.12 The image of a universe as a machine has been present long before
Descartes,13 nonetheless, it was the influence of Cartesian thought that solidi‑
fied the mechanistic image of the Universe as the legitimate one. As Henryk
Grossmann explains, “mechanics […] became the new religion and it gave to the
world a new Messiah: the machine. Descartes was so dominated by mechanistic
ideas that he could not think of the world or any of its parts without immediately
comparing them with some machine”.14 Immediately, Descartes’s preoccupa‑
tion with the machine spread among his contemporaries and became a part
of an Enlightenment inheritance.15 The implications of the presentation of the
universe as inanimate, dead and soulless have led, ultimately, to the expansive
attitudes toward environment that have caused the ecological crisis. Facing
serious destabilization of the living conditions on our planet, the issues of hu‑
man attitude toward the world – including human perception – have became
an ethical concern.
The question of human responsibility for life on Earth posed by the global
ecological crisis can be understood as an extension of an anthropocentric point
of view to a wider perspective, sometimes called ecocentrism or holism. Current
discussion about the necessity of ecological ethics as extending even at a cosmic
level (planetary ethics) suggests the need to re-think this kind of holistic consid‑
eration: what does it mean for us? Is it a mere hyperbolic exercise?
There are some attempts to seek connections between the cosmos and life on
Earth. For example, the search for life in the universe underlies the astrobiological

12 F. W. J. Schelling, Philosophical investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. J. Love and
J. Schmidt, New York: State University Press of New York, 2006, p. 26.
13 For a comprehensive study of the mechanistic metaphor in philosophy and science, see H. Grossman,
op. cit.
14 Ibidem, p. 219.
15 For instance, in “Meditations on First Philosophy” Descartes uses the following analogy to a sick
16 body: “And a clock made of wheels and counter-weights follows all the laws of nature no less closely when
it has been badly constructed and does not tell the time accurately that it does when it has completely sa‑
tisfies the wish of its maker. Likewise, I might regard a man’s body as a kind of mechanism that is outfitted
with and composed of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin in such a way that, even if no mind
existed in it, the man’s body would still exhibit all the same motions that are in it now except for those
motions that proceed either from a command of the will or, consequently, from the mind.” R. Descartes,
Meditations On First Philosophy In Which The Existence Of God And The Distinction Of The Soul From The
Body Are Demonstrated, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993, p. 55. See as well the
following passage: “Perhaps not all bodies exist exactly as I grasp them by sense, since this sensory grasp
is in many cases very obscure and confused. But at least they do contain everything I clearly and distinctly
understand – that is, everything, considered in a general sense, that is encompassed in the object of pure
mathematics.” Ibidem, p. 52.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

research;16 others ask about the influence of cosmic factors on the Earthly bio‑
sphere. Indeed, this question is a very old one.17
The perspective of the cosmic influence on a living Earth supplies an organic
way of perceiving the relation between the human and the cosmic and turns our
attention to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of “the flesh of the
world”.18 This point is crucial to David Abram’s work on the Gaia hypothesis:

For when my intelligence, or mind, does not think of itself as something separable from the living body,
but starts to recognize its grounding in these senses and this material flesh, then it can no longer hold
itself apart from the material world in which this body has its place. As soon as my awareness forfeits
its claim to a total transcendence and acknowledges its dependence upon this physical form, then the
whole of the physical world shudders and wakes. This experience corresponds to the second, unfin‑
ished phase in Merleau-Ponty’s writing, when he refers less often to the body as the locus of perceptual
experience and begins to write of the collective Flesh, his term for the animate, sensitive existence that
encompasses us (of which our own sentient bodies are but a part).19

According to this position, the whole Earth is alive since animal bodies are
sensitive to the natural cosmic rhythms. If we take a look at the heavens and then
go back to embodied matter on earth, it becomes clear that there is no split between
the sky and “fallen” earthly matter that are intertwined from the very beginning
of life on our planet. This phenomenological hypothesis sheds light on Bruno
Latour’s proposal that an assumed separation between nature and culture, ground‑
ed on mechanistic view, allows an absolute characteristic of modernist projects.

16 For a comprehensive study of this area, see: G.  Horneck and Ch.  Baumstark-Khan (eds.),
Astrobiology. The Quest for the Conditions of Life.Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2002 and B. Jakosky,
Science, Society, and the Search for Life in the Universe. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2006.
17 More recently a Russian geologist Vladimir Vernadsky has explored those issues. According
to Vernadsky, any living matter is completely interwoven with inanimate processes. See more, for instance,
in: D. Sagan, L. Margulis, R. Guerrero, Descartes, Dualism, and Beyond. In: L. Margulis, D. Sagan, Dazzle
gradually. Reflections on The Nature of Nature. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. White River Junction, 17
2006, p. 200.
18 M. Merleau-Ponty, Basic Writings, T. Baldwin (ed.), London and New York: Routlege, 2004, p. 263.
Merleau-Ponty describes the notion of flesh as follows: “this interiorly worked-over mass, has no name in
any philosophy. As the formative medium of the object and the subject, it is not the atom of being, the hard
in itself that resides in a unique place and moment: one can indeed say of my body that it is not elsewhere,
but one cannot say that it is here or now in the sense that objects are; and yet my vision does not soar over
them, it is not the being that is wholly knowing, for it has its own inertia, its ties. We must not think the
flesh starting from substances, from body and spirit – for then it would be the union of contradictories –
but we must think it, as we said, as an element, as the concrete emblem of a general manner of being.” See
as well p. 254: “the body belongs to the order of the things as the world is universal flesh.”
19 D. Abram, “The perceptual implications of Gaia”, The Ecologist 15.3 (1985), p. 96 – 103.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

He argues that “they are going to be able to make nature intervene at every point
in the fabrication of their societies while they go right on attributing to nature its
radical transcendence; they are going to be able to become the only actors in their
own political destiny while they go right on making their society hold together by
mobilizing nature”.20 Muller continues Latour’s argument by stating that

Once we make explicit the proliferation of nature/culture hybrids concealed through employing the
machine metaphor and recognize the complicated linkages that we have been unable to comprehend
fully, we then can become ‘non-modern.’ We become attuned to a different embodied resonance, one
that is more therapeutically sensitive to environment. This new embodied resonance is made conceptu‑
ally manifest in a new constellation of metaphors informing environmental thought.21

The metaphor that employs organic and embodied perception is, however,
often relegated to the controversies of environmentalism. At this point, it is nec‑
essary to highlight common misunderstandings of this hypothesis. The first per‑
tains to the anxiety about the status of human culture, the human condition and
the very possibility of overcoming the so-called ecological crisis. As the cause
of the collapse of earthly ecosystems, humans are considered parasites on Mother
Earth. This view, suggested by James Lovelock, amongst many others, is a myth.
Environmental philosophy can do well without dehumanisation.
The second addresses the view that cultures that were able to live in harmony
with nature were mainly pre-modern, indigenous and oral ones.22 Does that mean
that re-establishing the balance between human beings and nature is impossible
within the modern world? Radical environmentalists blame technological civiliza‑
tion and its achievements and even propose a necessity to return to a simpler life.
However, we argue that the very problem lies not in the question of whether
a primitive or a technological social structure is better, but rather it lies in the
heart of the human understanding of the world. It has been recognized that the
relation to the world, including nature, is a function of the way of perceiving the
18 world by humans.23 For indigenous people, the sacred nature was alive, rhythmic,

20 B. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1993, p. 32.
21 B. Muller, Metaphor, Environmental Receptivity, and Architectural Design, in: G. Backhaus and
J. Murungi (eds.), Symbolic Landscapes. Dordecht, London: Springer, 2008, p. 191.
22 For a comprehensive study of this issue, see more in D. Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous. Perception
and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. See as well D. Abram,
Language and the Ecology of Sensory Experience: An Essay With An Unconstructive Footnote. “Call To
Earth”, I/1 (2000): 8.
23 See, for instance, D. Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous. Perception and Language in a More-Than-
Human World.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

and cyclic. For modern man and woman, nature is rather a mechanism with re‑
sources and functions serving to human ends. In other words, the contrast is not
between primitive and modern hyper-mediated culture, but rather between but
rather between different representations and perceptions of nature, exemplified
here as the mechanistic and organic views on nature. Putting it in Abram’s terms
– between mechanistic and organic models of perceptions.
There is, therefore, a potential within the modern culture to approach nature
differently. This potential is conceived, for instance, in the organic view of the
world: the living universe. A crisis of perception disables humans from perceiv‑
ing their connectedness with the animate Earth. A zoologist Stephan Harding
believes that

The crisis [ecological crisis] is at root one of perception; we no longer see the cosmos as alive, nor do we
any longer recognize that we are inseparable from the whole of nature, and from our Earth as a living
being. But there is hope, for as crisis deepens, the call of anima mundi intensifies. […] in this time
of crisis, we need only pay heed to our thorough embeddedness within the earthly web of life to feel
the buried seed of anima mundi begin to stir and blossom in our minds and sensing bodies. As the
seed breaks open, we see the wisdom in letting go of the objectivist assumptions of modern science,
without abandoning the considerable achievements and benefits that it has undoubtedly brought us”.24

In light of this remark, what is needed is a revision of the meanings of the

cosmos and the Earth together with the juxtaposition of the two epistemological
approaches to the perceptual experience.

The cosmic harmony of existence

The greatest forms of the beautiful are order and symmetry and determinateness, which the mathemati‑
cal kinds of knowledge most of all display. And since these make their appearance as causes of many
things (I mean such things as order and determinateness), it is clear that these kinds of knowledge 19
would also speak about these things in other places.
– Aristotle, Metaphysics

The cosmos has always fascinated those who have been aware of it. Greek
philosophers noticed that there is symmetry, proportion and harmony in the
world. They noticed it in the motion of celestial bodies, which was believed to be

24 S. Harding, Animate Earth. Science, Intuition, and Gaia, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing
Company, 2006, p. 29
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

regular and they observed that they revolved around circular orbits. They also
imagined a perfection of harmonic sounds produced by the bodies as they rotated.
This quest for symmetry as perfection is still a current topic, as modern physicists
have asserted:

Humans, for thousands of years, have been drawn instinctively to equate symmetry to perfection. […]
The symmetries that we sense and observe in the world around us affirm the notion of the existence
of a perfect order and harmony underlying everything in the Universe. Through symmetry we sense
an apparent logic at work in the universe, external to, yet resonant with, our own minds.25

The Earth, which for Plato was only the reflection of the world of platonic ideas
as imitations, was not that perfect. But it was still possible to find harmony in the
symmetrical and proportional structure of living beings, in buildings raised by
human, in numbers, and geometric structures, which, according to some, belonged
to the world of ideas26. Moreover, the sounds which were said to be pleasant to the
ear, of both a celestial and terrestrial nature, were based on the same numerical
harmonic relations. They assumed that if people made a conscious effort to co-exist
with nature, respecting non – human beings and accepting whatever fate brings,
people’s lives would reflect the ideas of harmony.27 We can see clearly that aspects
of such a cosmic perspective have been appropriated by modern science: “As we
have seen, the homely metaphors of commonsense and everyday life offer us no
guidance when we look at the bewildering cosmos in which we find ourselves
[…] Only mathematics, in whose code nature writes her secrets, can tell us what
is real”.28
The postulated perfection of the World hides some danger: if the world was
perfect (perfect, according to Aristotle, meant finished, one which met its desti‑
nation or achieved its aim), it would not be able to develop. This was noticed by
Empedocles who postulated that perfection was based on imperfection which,
therefore, would allow the possibility for development.29
20
25 L. M. Lederman, Ch. T. Hill, Symmetry and the beautiful universe. Amherst, New York: Prometheus
Books, 2004, p. 14 – 15.
26 Also today many researchers claim that mathematics and other sciences lead to a deeper under‑
standing of a hidden order, as Lee Smolin said: “Both mathematical and physics education is a kind of an
introduction into a certain mystical order”. L. Smolin, Życie Wszechświata. Nowe spojrzenie na kosmologię,
trans. B. Czyżewska, Warszawa: Amber, 1997, p 209. Originally published as: idem, The Life of the Cosmos,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
27 H. Korpikiewicz, Kosmoekologia. Obraz zjawisk. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2006, p. 11 – 19.
28 D. C. Reanney, The Death of Forever: A New Future for Human Consciousness. Melbourne: Longman
Cheshire, 1991, p. 156.
29 Korpikiewicz, p. 12.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

Observation of nature has proved Empedocles to be right, for nature does not
always realize its possibilities. The bodies of animals and plants are not perfectly
symmetrical, while snowflakes and coastal lines are not perfectly fractal. Also the
celestial bodies which were supposedly built from the perfect “fifth substance” are
not perfectly spherical and move on conic sections (but not on circular orbits).
Even the laws of nature, although being highly symmetrical, manifest themselves
via breaking their symmetry.30 Is it really true that nature is almost symmetrical,
as defined by Richard Feynman?31 Is breaking the symmetry its way to solve
the dilemma between unification and diversity? The answers seem to be proven,
as Lederman and Hill argue: “In fact, most substances are chaotic and random con‑
figurations of atoms at high temperatures […] the enormous size of the universe
itself is believed to be mostly a consequence of a phenomenon similar to sponta‑
neous symmetry breaking”. 32
Human longing for perfect structures is represented in pre-modern art’s preoc‑
cupation with perfect proportions of the human body, buildings and landscapes.
The correlation between proportion and beauty is deep. Even average people per‑
ceive proportional objects as beautiful. The same ideas are represented in sciences
such as physics, cosmology and theoretical astronomy. In all of these, researchers
declare themselves to be looking for a theory, one which is perfect, symmetrical
and thus beautiful.33 This is our eternal dream. As Steven Weinberg said:34

Plato and the neo-Platonists taught that the beauty we see in nature is a reflection of the beauty of the
ultimate, the nouns. For us, too, the beauty of present theories is an anticipation, a promotion, of the
beauty of the final theory. And in any case, we would not accept any theory as the final theory unless
it was beauty.

As a result we look for perfection in the surrounding world but also try to cre‑
ate perfect and harmonic objects, buildings, products as well as mathematical
equations. However, in the Universe seeing a perfection of ideas is just the begin‑
ning of the concept which interests us here. 21

30 This phenomenon is called spontaneous symmetry breaking. Great explains is given by example
“a pencil on its top” and “the mexican hat potential” in Lederman and Hill, p. 190 – 191.
31 Korpikiewicz, p. 62.
32 Lederman and Hill, p. 198 –200.
33 Steven Weinberg has defined some particular qualities which make theory (physical theory) beau‑
tiful. These features are: simplicity, the sense of inevitability, and principles of symmetry, which means that
our object is the same from different points of view. S. Weinberg. Dreams of a Final Theory, New York:
Pantheon Books, 1992, p. 134 – 137.
34 Ibidem, p. 165.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

At a time of global ecological crisis, knowledge of ecological relations between

different levels of life on Earth becomes a starting point for scientific, philosophical
and even ideological discussions. The holistic paradigm gives new perspectives on
these considerations. The key for creating a new formula is a comprehensive and
holistic vision of social and ecological categories. If we look more closely at the
ecological relations between living nature and the inanimate world we can con‑
clude that these relations may have deeper roots – the living, generative cosmos.

Defining cosmoecology

One of the pioneers in the search for knowledge of cosmic influence was Alexander
L. Czyżewski (1897 – 1964), "the father of heliobiology" and a Nobel Prize candidate
in 1938. In his works he was interested mostly in the influence of the sun on life
on Earth. He was especially interested in the influence of solar activity on a series
of earthly occurrences (both in living and non-living nature). He pointed out
that there was a relation between the activity of the Sun and occurrences such as:
rainfall, the water level of great lakes, hurricanes, magnetic storms, earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, bird migrations, blossoming of plants, the propagation of ani‑
mals, epidemics, and even social movements – revolutions and wars. He had
started to consider the planetary process as a category of living creature, before
James Lovelock had published the hypothesis of Gaia:

The analogy between physiological mechanisms of living organisms and physiochemical mechanisms
of the solar system is more obvious when we consider electromagnetic phenomena (…) interplanetary
space is expressed as electromagnetic power, being the nerve fiber along which current from the Sun
is flowing. Interplanetary space also expresses corpuscular radiation by the vascular system which
brings nourishment for planetary life.35

22 The history of cosmoecological research is quite long.36 More recently, in the

eighteenth century, geologist James Hutton described Earth as “a kind of super‑
organism, alive and pumping.” Hutton suggests that “planetary physiology” is an
appropriate method to study the processed on the planet Earth.37

35 A. Czyżewski, Ziemnoje echo słonecznych bur’. II. Moskow: Mysl’, 1976, p. 83.

36 For instance the writings of Marcus Porcius Cato (234 – 149 b.c.e.) it is observed that corn is higher
when the sun is brighter. The sun’s activity has an influence on the weather. The weather affects the cycle
of growth of plants. This influences, as a result, the prices of the crops. Reduced sun activity (which sym‑
ptoms are fewer bright spots, and that affects the darker color of sun) results in a decrease in the harvest.
37 Weiner, p. 192.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

At the beginning of nineteenth century Polish heliophisicist – Jan Mergentaler

(1901– 1995) – investigated the influence of the sun on the Earth and its organ‑
isms.38 Another important figure is Bohdan Kiełczewski (1912 – 1998), who worked
on biometeorology and chronobiology and discovered particular connections
between cosmic factors and life, such as dependences between chromospheric
flash and the mortality of organisms. It was Kiełczewski’s initiative to propose
the term cosmoecology for investigations that relate to the influence of the cosmic
environment on the environment of the Earth. The genesis of this term derives
from the Greek language: kosmos – the order, oikos – the environment.39
In a general overview, cosmoecology considers the influence on life on Earth
of such cosmic elements as solar radiation, solar activity, solar and lunar gravitation,
meteorite disasters, explosions of supernovae, magnetic and electric fields, change‑
ability, and disturbances of planetary atmospheres. All of these play an important
role in such aspects of life such as diversity, the potential of development of life, and
the adaptation processes of living organisms. In other words, cosmoecology reflects
a deep need to explore the connections between all parts of the universe. This inspi‑
ration is expressed by Daryll Reanney who claims that the world of science realized
that all should be explained in order to explain the whole.40
The significance of raising the issue of cosmoecology lies in its implications for
understanding the human place in nature. This is no longer the cosmic perspec‑
tive detached from human existence, where the question “What really matters
for human beings?” dissolves as nonsense in the abstract context of infinite time
and space. It is rather a timidly recognized turn toward the present, living Earthly
matter, toward a perceptual experience that receives anima mundi’s messages. In
that respect, cosmoecology – by pointing out the influence of cosmic factors on
human body – supports the organic metaphor.

Searching for the cosmic influence on the Earth

23
From the earliest time, humankind was apparently aware of the dependence of life on
the earthly biosphere under the sun. Initially only the influence of infrared radiation
(thermal) was appreciated. The other types of radiation, such as ultra-violet, until

38 For further discussion of this problem, see J. Mergentaler, “Aktywność Słońca a biologia”, Urania,
vol. 8 (1979) and idem, Słońce – Ziemia, Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1978.
39 The first mention of this subject appears in B. Kiełczewski, H. Korpikiewicz. „Perspektywy astrologii
naukowej“ Problemy Astrologii, 1980, p. 7 – 21.
40 See Reanney, The Death of Forever: A New Future for Human Consciousness, Melbourne: Longman
Cheshire, 1991.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

quite recently remained underestimated. Only in the last 100 years was corpuscular
(solar wind) radiation coming from the Sun recognized together with the existence
of the earthly magnetosphere. The magnetosphere protects us not only from this
wind (van Allen`s belts), but also along with the heliosphere, from cosmic radiation.
Corpuscular radiation and some ranges of electromagnetic radiation increase their
own intensity in their dependence on solar activity, which on Earth appears with
great frequency: magnetic storms, radio- disturbances and auroras, together with
changes of the weather and the climate, changes in the vegetation of plants and mi‑
grations of animals, and also increases in the intensity of many diseases, particularly
infectious diseases and ailments of the circulatory system.41
We seldom realize that it is the Sun that is at the bottom of meteorological oc‑
currences on Earth. The movements of particles of air occur under the influence
of the kinetic energy provided by the sun. Occurrences of rock weathering are the
direct or indirect results of the sun’s radiation (warming of rocks, the wind and
the rain), and also its gravitational pull.42
From the moment of Earthly origin, cosmic dust, as well as greater blocks
of meteor bodies, have been falling onto our planet. It has been estimated that
at present moment around 20 – 50 tons fall every twenty-four hours. Meteoric bod‑
ies have inspired countless beliefs, myths and legends, and have caused physical
changes. These changes include: the state of the atmosphere (the ozone-layer) and
disturbances in the propagation of radio waves. Meteorites are even sometimes
a cause of disaster on a large scale. Great collisions, which leave behind evidence
in the form of large craters and also cataclysms such as the fabled sunken island
of Atlantis, were described by Plato.43

41 H. Korpikiewicz, Kosmoekologia z elementami etyki holistycznej. Hipoteza Gai – Uranosa, Poznań:

Wydawnictwo Prodruk, 2002, p. 23 – 192. The other example comes from the results of the research of a pre‑
viously mentioned Russian heliobiologist, Czyżewski. He analyzed data of cholera epidemics (cholera
asiatica) and the sun activity during these periods. It turns out that the epidemics of the disease appeared
at a time of higher sun activity. Similar results hold for epidemics of flu, typhoid, plague and diphtheria.
24 Epidemics of diphtheria and 35% of cases of plague are the only cases among the above mentioned diseases
which appear at the maximum intensity of sun activity. The explanation of this fact is a correlation of the
above factors. The resistance of the human organism changes in accordance with sun activity. At maximum
sun activity, the antiseptic ability of our blood, saliva and gastric juices are decrease. See ibidem, p. 83.
42 The sun and the moon have a major influence on the weather, which entails several occurrences in
the biosphere. Both these bodies, by virtue of their own gravitational activity, affect the occurrence of tides
of water (which is the most well-known process) as well as in the lithosphere. Each type is liable to be the
cause of releasing the energy what may result in earthquakes or the eruption of volcanoes. They are also
the cause of tides in the atmosphere which change the weather, so they have an indirect influence on the
growth of plants and animal life.
43 It is worthwhile to mention that there exist the numerous hypotheses which unite the events of great
extensions of animals of former epochs (among other things 65 million years ago) with the impact of a col‑
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

Objects more distant from Earth as well as force fields working in the inter‑
planetary space have also influenced life on Earth. The visible radiation sent by
stars has provided a source for the navigation of people and animals. Ionizing
radiation can be destructive for earthly life. Thus, the eruption of stars near the
sun will simultaneously cause the disappearance of the magnetic field of the Earth
and the protective framing of the magnetosphere preserving the biosphere.
The electric field of Earth’s atmosphere is also involved, since it is necessary
for life. It has been proven that animals devoid of negative ions die even when
the composition of air is breathable. A condition applies to similar cosmonauts in
space ships. The electric field of the atmosphere comes into being mostly because
of the cosmic ionization of the upper layers of the atmosphere. The field holds
the definite state of electric charges of the Earth’s surface and those flowing under
its shell in the form of currents producing the magnetic field of our planet. All
changes of the magnetic field, both of drastic (the inversion of poles) and of weaker
intensity (magnetic storms, per current in the rhythm of the activity of the sun)
have a bearing on organisms of plants and animals.
The influence of the gravitational field on the development of organisms re‑
mained unnoticed for a long time. For instance, in environments where buoyancy
diminishes the activity of the gravitational pull, organisms have different anatomy
and physiology, such as other centers of blood production. Experimental research
on the Earth and in space show that a slightly higher gravitational pull can af‑
fect organisms favorably, especially the growth of muscular and bone tissues, but
a longer stay in weightlessness is unhealthy. This explains why some types of sport
activities have a better influence than others on health and physical condition.44
However, the most profound factors in revealing a connection between the
cosmos and the Earth are the cosmic rhythms of life. The universe is full of phe‑
nomena which occur rhythmically. Most from them take place under the influ‑
ence of the movements of orbital bodies and the rotary motion round the axis.
Cosmic rhythms modify the living conditions on Earth. They are connected with
the beginning of existence of life, and furthermore they are necessary for them. 25
These conditions have such far-reaching effects that without certain gravita‑
tional rhythms – especially those of the moon and its movement, the principal
conditions for the life on Earth would not be satisfied. The stability of the orbit
is an example of such conditions. Life would not be able to come into being even

lision of Earth with a cosmic body. The dust from of the break-up of such a body can stop solar radiation,
which is reflected in the biosphere. Also the dust from dust-clouds of the Galaxy (dark nebulae) can ap‑
parently, during the course of the sun around the nucleus of the Galaxy, cause an ice-age and extinctions
of species. See more in: E. O. Wilson, Diversity of Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.
44 For example, hiking in the mountains produces much better effects than walking on a flat terrain.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

if the remaining parameter of the location of the Earth in relation to the sun was
suitable. What is meant here is the distance of the planet from the Sun, its inclina‑
tion to the ecliptic and its orbits (or turning on its axis).
Cosmic rhythms consist of elements such as: the movement of Earth round the
axis, round the sun, the circulation of the moon round Earth and other periods
of the circulation and resonances. They have influenced series of specific rhythms
of organisms living on Earth. One may mention here the daily, seasonal rhythms
or tides. They regulate the physiological reactions of an organism in dependence
with the cosmic rhythms. The adaptive response of earthly organisms to cosmic
rhythms which are, in fact, biological rhythms is investigated by chronobiology.45
Even though there might be some speculative component in the conceptualization
of the chronobiology, the fact remains that the relation between cosmic rhythms
and animate realm on earth is not coincidental.

Gaia – Uranus Hypothesis

A conviction of the relationship of all Earthly matter: both animate and inanimate,
and the representation of Earth as a living creature, has persisted in the works of phi‑
losophers since before Plato. One of the current versions of this metaphor, formu‑
lated in 1970 by James Lovelock, is the hypothesis of Gaia. The idea was based on
the innumerable quantity of relationships among ecosystems of the biosphere.46
Though the concept of Gaia defined by Lovelock has had a strong influence on
environmental thought, nowadays it has been broadly criticized.47 In particular,
Lovelock’s unquestioningly and indisputably positive attitude toward technology and
his engagement with industry, intertwined with his anti-humanist implications of the
Gaia metaphor, are very problematic for his critics.48 For that reason, we understand
the Gaia hypothesis only as an inspiring metaphor – an ancient metaphor – whose
significance lies in emphasizing the organic aspect of the Earth.49
26
45 For further discussion of this problem, see H. Korpikiewicz, Kosmoekologia. Obraz zjawisk,
p. 136 – 137.
46 J. Lovelock, Gaia A new look at life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
47 There are not enough possibilities for the verification of this hypothesis in an empirical way,
so it turns to be basically an intellectual exercise. For further discussion of this problem, see W. Zweers,
Participating with Nature. Outline for an Ecologization of our World View. Transl. J. Taylor, Utrecht:
International Books, 2000, p. 48 – 49. For the comprehensive critique of the Gaia hypothesis, see E. Kohák,
The Green Halo. A Bird’s View of Ecological Ethics. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2008 , p. 129–135.
48 See, for instance, Kohák, p. 133 – 135.
49 Even though the Gaia hypothesis raised numerous problems, still it is consider as a useful meta‑
phor worth considering. See, for instance, T. Volk, Gaia’s Body. Toward a Physiology of Earth. Cambridge,
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

This line of exploration allows us to consider together, under a common name,

the environment connecting the Earth and the Heavens, where all the occurrences
are joined. This hypothesis, by analogy to the hypothesis of Gaia, has been given
the double name composed of the names of the Greek Gods of Earth (Gaia) and
Heavens (Uranus): the hypothesis of Gaia-Uranus.50
The interesting inspiration that has been undertaken by philosophers and
ecologists from the Gaian view is the juxtaposition of the organic with the mecha‑
nistic model of the world. Obviously, the Gaia hypothesis is not the only inspiration
in a course toward a holistic science by revealing the role of the organic perception
of an animate characteristic of the world. Of course, this recognition is not a new
one. As an example, as Fideler illustrates, twentieth-century physics offers grounds
an organic approach toward nature:

Because of the implications of quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and the realization that we inhabit an
evolutionary, self-organizing universe are starting to work themselves out, it is no exaggeration to say
that we are truly living in the midst of a new Cosmological Revolution that will ultimately overshadow
the Scientific Revolution of the Renaissance. And if the mechanistic worldview left us stranded in
Flatland – a two-dimensional world of dead, atomistic matter in motion – the merging cosmological
picture is far more complex, multidimensional, and resonant with the traditional Neoplatonic meta‑
phot of the living universe.51

However, in social sciences these inspirations remain distant. Freya Mathews

explicates this issue in the following way:

In Einstein’s cosmology in particular, there were intimations and interpermeation – of everything

participating in everything else, of mutual holding and enfolding at the structural base of existence.
(…) Yet such ideas were hard to find in our culture at that time. (…) from the viewpoint of modern
Western thought in general, the idea of a world alive with meanings of its own appeared atavistic,
a throwback to a primitive anthropomorphic realism that had been superseded and invalidated both
by scientific culture and by epistemological insight of modern philosophy.52 27

Massachusetts, London, England: The Mit Press, 2003, ix: “Even if the system I portray is not the same
as Jim Lovelock’s Gaia, I still use this term for what I consider equvalent – the biosphere – and give Lovelock
credit for pointing to aspects of its integration. (…) there is an intimate connection between life forms and
the composition of atmosphere, ocean, and soil.”
50 First mention on Gaia-Uranus Hypothesis appeared in: H. Korpikiewicz, Koncepcja wzrostu entropii
a rozwój świata, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 1998, p. 121 – 138.
51 Fideler, p. 142.
52 F. Mathews, For Love of Matter. A Contemporary Panpsychism. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 2003, p. 3.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

Insight from the Gaia hypothesis became an inspiration to a “participatory

understanding” of the world, that “makes peace with nature by rediscovering
and embodying a world-view that reconnects us with a deep sense of participat‑
ing in a cosmos suffused with intelligence, beauty, intrinsic value and profound
meaning”.53
There are at least two levels of Gaia-Uranus hypothesis (as well as cosmoeco‑
logy) which may carry import for environmental thought. The hypothesis reflects
the major change in the scientific approach toward the Earth: from an objective,
abstract description of the world, which assumes the static image of the Earth,
toward a living picture in which everything is connected and communicates, and
in which humans are embedded.
The shift from the dominanting interpretation of the mechanical metaphor to‑
ward the organic one leads us through various revolutions in the scientific method
that follows from Descartes to a new orientation in how we perceive the world,
while placing importance on the question of perception.
This change has been grasped by Abram, who draws on Maurice Merleau-
Ponty’s phenomenology of the body and vision in order to explicate the perceptual
implication of the Gaia Hypothesis. Abram suggests that we usually say in our
common language: “we dwell on the Earth” instead of “that we live within the
Earth”, whereas the Gaia Hypothesis implies that “we shall have to admit that we
live in this planet rather than on it”.54
To understand the Gaia-Uranus hypothesis means to be immersed in the
living world. Only from within that world the distinction between space and
time is unified into the experience of pulsing, rhythmic Earth where everything
is connected to each other.
The fluid creativity commonly associated with the human mind or intellect is,
actually, an extension (and recapitulation) of a deep creativity already underway
at the most immediate level of bodily experience. For Merleau-Ponty, it is the or‑
ganic, sensitive body itself that perceives the world and, ultimately, comprehends
28 the world – not some interior and immaterial mind.
Lincoln Michell considers two models of the possibility of (scientific) know‑
ledge: “one dis-embodied and inherited from Descartes; the other em-bodied
and inspired by the Gaia hypothesis and phenomenologically conceptualized by
Merleau-Ponty.” Doubtless, Michell emphasizes the importance of the change in
the scientists’ attention which is called “the Gaia shift”.55
53 Harding, p. 19.
54 D. Abram, The perceptual implications of Gaia, op. cit.
55 L. Michell, „Embodied Perception in a Breathing World”, in: S. Edwards and P. Sherwood (eds.),
Breath Based Mental Health Promotion, Durban, South Africa: Aim Print, 2008.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

It has been shown that the Gaia hypothesis inspired both ecologists as well
as philosophers’ attempts to find an alternative approach to the Cartesian episte‑
mological model which is followed by the body-mind distinction.
Yet the Gaia-Uranus Hypothesis does more to recognize the primacy of per‑
ceptual experience and the “earthly” locus of logos. Cosmic influences on life on
earth (daily rythms that determine the processes of earthly ecosystems – vegetation
etc.) reveal how subtle and organic are the bodies and relations between them
(both human and non-human), in contrast with the mechanistic model of body
and world. The rhythmic characteristic of life – one of the key biological concepts
– is very obvious. At the same time, the image of nature that has drawn upon
the scientific concepts that objectified time and space (necessarily by separating
them) retains the associations with the static and mechanic. This is the case even
for twenty-first century science.
As much as the implication of the Gaia Hypothesis is turned toward the invisi‑
ble air and the breathing Earth, the Gaia-Uranos Hypothesis emphasizes, perhaps
even exaggerates, the key of the rhythms on our planet.

According to David Abram, the return to senses and perceptual experience can be realized by “re‑
awakening the forgotten intimacy and solidarity between the human animal and the animate Earth,
that we have a chance of slowing and finally constraining the onrushing pursuit of knowledge and
technological process that we manifest at the expense of this breathing world”.56

Abram, drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the flesh of the world,57 suggests an alternative way
of conceiving the earthly biosphere (in contrast to mechanistic one); it is the biosphere “as it is experi‑
enced and lived from within by the intelligent body – by the attentive human organism who is entirely
a part of the world that he, or she, experiences”.58

According to Abram, perception is communication and communion:

“Perception, then – the whole play of the senses – is a constant communion be‑
tween ourselves and the living world that encompasses us”.59 Thus, the question 29

56 Harding, p. 50.
57 As Abram asserts, “One of the major accomplishments of his [Merleau-Ponty's] investigations
was to show that the fluid creativity that we commonly associate with the human mind, or intellect, is in
actuality an extension (and recapitulation) of a deep creativity already underway at the most immediate
level of bodily experience. For Merleau-Ponty, it is the organic, sensitive body itself that perceives the world
and, ultimately, thinks the world — not some interior and immaterial mind. (…) Merleau-Ponty disclosed
this perceptual interchange between body and world as the very foundation of truth in history, in political
thought and action, in art, and in science.” See in: Abram, The perceptual implications of Gaia.
58 See Stephen Harding interpretation of Abram's work: Harding, p. 47.
59 Abram, The perceptual implications of Gaia.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

arises: what does that mean for us? How can we participate and communicate
with our environment?
The answer might be found in the works of Aldo Leopold. That kind of expe‑
rience – the communion between human being and its environment – inspired
him to deeply understand his mission. In The County Sound Almanac Leopold
describes his encounter with a dying wolf that he shot during a hiking and hunt‑
ing trip. It is worth mentioning that at this time wolves and hunters had the same
species of deer as prey and Leopold promoted a conservationist project that as‑
sumed a reduction of the wolf population in the United States in order to eliminate
“competition” between hunters and wolves. During that encounter with an old
wolf, Leopold is unexpectedly thrilled by a green flame in her dying eyes. And
suddenly, his perception of place transformed into a new experience – the experi‑
ence of a connection with the anima mundi:

There was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the mountain.
I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But
after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf, nor the mountain agreed with such a view.60

In order to understand what Leopold means by the statement that the moun‑
tain does not agree with his view, we will follow the interpretation conducted by
Stephan Harding. The word “mountain” has been used in the sense of “the wild
ecosystem in which the incident took place, for the ecosystem as an entirety,
as a living presence with its deer, its wolves and other animals, its clouds, soils
and streams. For the first time in his life, Leopold felt completely at one with
this wide ecological reality. He felt that it had a power to communicate a sacred
magnificence. (…) He experienced the ecosystem as a great being, dignified and
valuable in itself ”.61
We argue that precisely in this sense we can read and interpret the idea that
only nature conceived as a person can be saved. To apprehend the world in this way
30 cannot mean anthropomorphizing it. It means to be immersed in a lived universe

60 A. Leopold, Thinking Like a Mountain, in: idem, A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1966, p. 129 – 133. In this famous essay, author questions the issue of perception. According
to his commentator, Daniel Berthold, Leopold narrative is an allegory of self-transformation that, ultimately,
pertains to the human perception. The way how we perceive the world determines, ultimately, what will be
recognized. As Berthold concludes, “To ‘think like a mountain,’ however mystical, however extraordinary
its demands upon our perception, has highly practical ecological consequences: to think like a mountain
is to think ecologically, from the perspective of the welfare and flourishing of what is normally ‘outside’
and ‘other’ to us, the environment itself.” See more in: D. Berthold, A. Leopold: In Search of a Poetic Science,
Human Ecology Review, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2004, p. 211.
61 Harding, p. 43.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

and be able to listen to what is being communicated. And this is precisely the
heart of environmental ethics, a holistic ethics that recognizes the Other – nature
– with neither scientific nor cultural myths about the nature of nature. According
to Timothy Morton, the main obstacle which keeps humanity at a distance from
environment is our idea of nature: a social construct. The biggest paradox occurs,
according to Morton, in the recognition that “the best way to have ecological
awareness is to love the world as a person”.62
The world loved as a person has to be understood in a way that follows, for
instance, from the perceptual implications of cosmoecology. In that respect, “the
communication and the communion between humanity and nature” is possible
not as a radicalized call for a denial of the constitutive elements of our culture, but
rather as a “natural”, pulsing experience of existence. Environmental philosophy
has developed as a result of the recognition of the ecological crisis affected by hu‑
man actions. However, the ecological crisis is an extension of a crisis in Western
culture. Nonetheless, the call for a “new spirituality”, as an eventual solution, does
not mean a radical change in our nature – it would be rather a recognition of for‑
gotten potentialities. Therefore, the subject to change is not “human nature, but
the cultural orientations of the global society”.63 In this respect, David Abram
emphasizes the cultural assumptions, which stand behind the distance between
human beings and nature:

All of us raised in the culture that asks us to distrust our immediate sensory experience and to ori‑
ent ourselves instead on the basis of an abstract, “objective” reality known only through quantitative
measurements, technological instrumentation, and other exclusively human involvements.64

What is interesting in Abram’s approach is the fact that, actually, we do not

need to build more sophisticated theories, ideas or myths about nature and hu‑
man relationships with the environment. This recognition has been explicated by
Erazim Kohák, who observes: “we need neither mystical intuition nor alternative
realities. Clear perception and faithful articulation of pure world as constituted 31
by life will do quite nicely.”65
This may be an inspiring and instructive point in searching for onto-epistemol‑
ogies that are more adequate for ecological problems. The crisis can be transformed
from our current position by means of our reason and perception. We do not need

62 T. Morton, Ecology without Nature. Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, Massachusetts,

and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2009, p. 20.
63 Kohák, p. 9.
64 Abram, Language And The Ecology of Sensory Experience… , p. 217.
65 Kohák, p. 28.
 Honorata Korpikiewicz, Małgorzata Dereniowska

other myths or alternatives; rather, alternative methods of approaching the crisis

(of culture and of environment) are needed. Let us conclude with a quote from
Giorgio Agamben that remarks on the consequences for human beings:

In our culture, man has always been thought of as the articulation and conjunction of a body and
a soul, of a living thing and a logos, of a natural (or animal) element and a supernatural or social or
divine element. We must learn instead to think of man as what results from the incongruity of those
two elements, and investigate not the metaphysical mystery of conjunction, but rather the practical
and political mystery of separation. What is man, if he is always the place – and, at the same time,
the result – of ceaseless divisions and caesurae? It is more urgent to work on these divisions, to ask
in what way – within man – has been separated from non-man, and the animal from human, than it
is to take positions of the great issues, on so-called human rights and values. And perhaps even the
most luminous sphere of our relations with the divine depends, in some way, on that darker one which
separates us from the animal.66

The organic metaphor enables us to overcome dualisms by linking logos with

living things. It does not aspire to substitute the mechanistic perception that pro‑
vides grounds for many scientific methodologies. In that respect we can under‑
stand the juxtaposition of those two approaches not as competing, but as at least
partially complementary.

32

66 G. Agamben, The Open. Man and Animal. Kevin Attell trans. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press, 2002, p. 16.
Listening to Anima Mundi: the Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological Perspective

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Korpikiewicz Honorata, Dereniowska Małgorzata

Listening to Anima Mundi: The Organic Metaphor in the Cosmoecological
Perspective
Keywords: cosmoecology, Gaia-Uranus Hypothesis, organic model of perception, mechanistic
metaphor, Anima Mundi.

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to revise an organic epistemological approach toward nature. The
sources for such a view are found in the metaphor of the Earth as a living organism, which can be
traced even to ancient Greek philosophy. Drawing on the notion of cosmoecology and the Gaia-Uranus
Hypothesis, we re-think and supplement the holistic perspective in environmental ethics by emphasizing
the role of the embodied of nature, and by turning our attention back “from the heavens to earth”.

Słowa kluczowe: kosmoekologia, hipoteza Gai-Uranosa, organiczny model percepcji, metafora

mechanistyczna, Anima Mundi.

Abstrakt: Artykuł jest próbą rewizji organicznego modelu poznania natury, którego źródła czy inspiracje
wywodzą się z metafory Ziemi jako żywego organizmu. Inspirując się kosmoekologią oraz hipotezą
Gai-Uranosa dokonamy analizy i uzupełnienia perspektywy holistycznej w etyce środowiskowej oraz
wskażemy na rolę ucieleśnionego modelu percepcji dla rozwijania postawy etycznej odpowiedzialności
wobec natury.