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SDG: 17Partnerships for the GoalsFabio Rubio ScaranoRegenerative Dialogues for Sustainable FuturesIntegrating Science, Arts, Spirituality and Ancestral Knowledge for Planetary WellbeingSustainable Development Goals SeriesThe Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature’s inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of society’s greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal. In this spirit, the Sustainable Development Goals series is the first at Springer Nature to publish books under both the Springer and Palgrave Macmillan imprints, bringing the strengths of our imprints together.The Sustainable Development Goals Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one subseries based around each of the seventeen respective Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, “Connecting the Goals”, which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor with years or decades of experience studying and addressing core components of their respective Goal.The SDG Series has a remit as broad as the SDGs themselves, and contributions are welcome from scientists, academics, policymakers, and researchers working in fields related to any of the seventeen goals. If you are interested in contributing a monograph or curated volume to the series, please contact the Publishers: Zachary Romano [Springer; zachary.romano@springer.com] and Rachael Ballard [Palgrave Macmillan; rachael.ballard@palgrave.com].FabioRubioScaranoRegenerative Dialogues for Sustainable FuturesIntegrating Science, Arts, Spirituality andAncestral Knowledge forPlanetary WellbeingISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic)Sustainable Development Goals SeriesISBN 978-3-031-51840-9 ISBN 978-3-031-51841-6 (eBook)https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6Color wheel and icons: From https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/, Copyright © 2020 United Nations. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AGThe registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, SwitzerlandPaper in this product is recyclable.FabioRubioScarano Unesco Chair on Futures Literacy: Planetary Wellbeing and Regenerative Anticipation, Museum of Tomorrow Instituto de Desenvolvimento e GestãoUniversidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Ecology DepartmentRio de Janeiro, Brazilhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3355-9882To the memory of beloved friends and teacherswho moved to a more sustainable space/timeEduardo Arcoverde de MattosGustavo Alberto Bouchardet da FonsecaLuís Paulo de Souza PintoPeter Edward GibbsviiThe wellbeing of our planet is currently threatened by many crises. Most of them are man-made. It is still debated among experts if we may therefore officially name our time as a new global age ‘Anthropocene’. It appears justi-fied, because the impact of humankind is severe and fundamental and current changes have comprehensive planetary dimensions including climate change. The present book addresses this with a focus on three ideas: nature– sus-tainability– futures. These ideas contain concepts that are so general that they are hard to delineate. Is nature comprising all which is other than human? Or is it the entire global sphere to which mankind belongs, the Earth named after the old Greek Goddess Gaia sensu Lovelock (1979)? Sustainability has become a widespread mantra with a broad appearance in vast contexts. Futures (in the plural) are anticipated states in time with con-tradictions, chaos and complexity.The author, Fabio Rubio Scarano, is excellently erudite of Brazilian ecol-ogy with its high diversity of ecosystems (Lüttge etal. 2023). He is also expe-rienced in restoration (Scarano etal. 1998) and policies (Scarano etal. 2018). However, with this book he is making a large jump forward beyond this, integrating only apparently confined realms of thinking, such as philosophy, science, policy and practice. This is overcoming the borders between them, in the sense that while philosophy and science in their cores are clearly separate, their borders are flawed and they need to cooperate (Lüttge 2023a). Such cooperation is based on the dialogue asked for by the book. The dialogue is thought to be dialectic. The dialectic process reminds to Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel’s triptych of ‘thesis– anti-thesis– synthesis’, where one wor-ries if the dispute between thesis and anti-thesis will enable the Anthropocene to deliver a synthesis sustaining planetary wellbeing. The urgency of this question is underlined by reflecting the evolutionary history of mankind, which appears to have retained traits of egoism and aggressiveness that pre-vent solutions and make humans unable to handle these crises. The broad approach of Fabio to these questions on the bases of three general ideas and on different realms of thinking is a substantial gift to us in the hectic times, which humankind on its planet is creating and suffering of.Fabio starts into philosophical history of nature across times (Part I) with Ancient Greece, where pre-Socratic philosophers considered the universe as a natural whole. It is amazing what a tiny small part of the universe did they only know, where our current observations– especially with the new space telescope ‘James Webb’– provide information far into space and time of the Forewordviiihistory of our universe back to only about somewhat more than 200 million years after the big bang 13.5 billion years ago. Thus, we now must distinguish the whole of our planet and the whole of the universe. On the planet we rec-ognise the wholeness of holobionts and holobiont-like systems (Matyssek etal. 2023), the entire biosphere and Gaia. The time of Socrates and with Plato then puts humans in place within the universe. It is notable that Plato already recognised deforestation and pollution.The middle ages following the flourishing timewell-being as goal. Regeneration applies to repairing of systems, relationships and rights and is therefore inclusive of other worldviews, as opposed to the more strict (modern, capitalistic) notion of sustainable development. Planetary well-being is inclusive of all humans and non-humans and is now used to avoid confusion with the less inclusive meaning that sustainability has gained over the years, as it arguably became appropriated by capitalism. Alternatively, rather than competing concepts 1 Dialectic asaTherapy Against theModern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Crises5Planetary wellbeingRegenerationSustainabilityPost-developmentSustainable DevelopmentHuman componentsof natureNon-human componentsof natureFig. 1.1 A hierarchy of concepts: ‘planetary well-being’ is the broadest concept, inclusive of both ‘sustainability’ and its competing metaphor ‘regeneration’. ‘Sustainability’ includes both the modern ‘sustainable development’ view and the alternative non-modern views collectively called ‘post-development’. ‘Sustainable development’ attempts to balance out humans (from a social and an economic perspective) with non-human ele-ments of nature (environment), as if they were separate modules. Regeneration and post-development views, instead, often perceive humans and non-humans as one integrated wholeand metaphors, they can also be seen as a hierar-chical arrangement, as proposed in Fig.1.1.Part II of this book (from Chaps. 7 through to 11), Sustainability Emerges, examines in more depth the history and controversies around the concept of sustainability and its relationships with science, technology, ethics and policy.1.4 FutureIn 2014, Zygmunt Bauman on a visit to Brazil, said in an interview that ‘we live the end of the future’. The ‘death of utopia’, others would call it (e.g. Gray 2007). A moment in time where many thought futures of humanity– the hippie future, the Marxist future, the American dream, among others– all seemed to have failed and no longer be an option (Scarano 2019a). ‘Future’– for the hegemonic, modern view– is a measure of suc-cess. As past utopias failed and science projects bleak upcoming scenarios, the successful capital-ist future is no more. This feeling of ‘end of the future’ is typical of postnormal times, which are periods of accelerating change and transition. In the case of our present time, it is characterised by globalisation, climate change, economic and humanitarian crises, fast communication and transportation, altogether creating a state in which contradictions, chaos and complexity pre-vail (Sardar 2010). The often-cited statement of Funtowicz and Ravetz (1991, p.138) that in post-normal times ‘facts are uncertain, values in dis-pute, stakes high, and decisions urgent’ is also very appropriate for the context of this book. Concepts (e.g. nature) should not be perceived and operationalised as facts, especially consider-ing that values are in dispute (e.g. sustainability) because stakes are high (e.g. modern capitalist hegemony vs. other worldviews) and decisions are urgent given the feeling of end of the future due to the planetary crises (e.g. climate, biodiver-sity, humanitarian, health, economic, etc.).But how about science? Would it not sort it all out? Modern science excels in practices of fore-casting and foresight. It was projected in 2012 1.4 Future6that places with high biodiversity, large human populations, poverty and environmental degrada-tion were prone to epidemic or pandemic out-breaks of zoonotic diseases (Morse etal. 2012). Nevertheless, society did not act in anticipation of the Covid-19 pandemic. Scenario-building exercises no longer foresee business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission as an option (IPCC 2013), but society breaks emission records every year, and climate-related disasters intensify. There is very little significant action on planetary scale in anticipation to climate change. In other words, we forecast, we foresee, but we do not anticipate, and we do not take action. It is almost as if we do not feel the problems coming, or as if we sense that– at most– we are going to watch them happen on television. Until they happen.Our present seems to colonise our future. We have a hard time thinking of alternatives, espe-cially more positive ones. Nevertheless, the future does not exist. As Plato used to argue, it is mainly an imaginary reference that is important for us to do the ‘right thing’ in the present. Not the other way around. Time is one, one continu-ous time, eternal, one duration, one time, as Bergson (1901–1902/2019) argued. Chronological, linear time is pure abstraction that, for instance, many ancestral peoples, such as the North American Inuit, do not live by (Bates 2007). Dreams should not be silenced by anxiety with chronological time. If twentieth-century utopias are ‘dead’, it is definitely time for new ones.The sustainability utopia, therefore, is at stake. There are two types of utopias (Bregman 2017). The ‘blueprint’ utopia projects a future with immutable rules, while the ‘open’ utopia– as the open concepts proposed by Bergson and Blumenberg – unlocks desirable futures. The term ‘futures’ stands out as a metaphor for the potential of the coexistence of multiple desired futures instead of one future where hegemonies overrule so-called minorities. The SDG offers a blueprint utopia (Chap. 11), and my argument in this book is that such utopia should be opened up by a multicultural, multispecies dialogue, in the Platonic sense: one that enhances knowledge, agreement and, ultimately, heals the planet from the malaises brought about by Modernity. Of course, since modern science still stands as the prevailing form of interpretation of reality in Modernity, this dialogue must include it, but also other views, to move beyond the hegemonic per-spective on nature and sustainability that cur-rently colonises our futures. This is the topic of Part III of the book, which examines the existing and potential dialogues of sustainability with the arts (Chap. 12), religion and spirituality (Chap. 13), ancestral cultures (Chap. 14), the youth (Chap. 15) and the means to foster these dialogues (Chap. 16). Part D, the conclusive sec-tion, has two Chaps. 17 and 18 on futures and utopia.1.5 Final Remarks: Metaphors‘Linguistic “transference” enables us to give material form to the invisible (…) and thus to render it capable of being experienced’. This statement by Hannah Arendt (1968, p. 166) explains why in this chapter and across the book, I am not proposing that we abandon concepts such as nature, sustainability and future. I argue, instead, that to experience them is incomplete and unfulfilling while they remain abducted by modern hegemonies. A supposed precision and eventually even a normative attribution to these concepts turn flat their original multimensional-ity. Arendt continues, ‘metaphors are the means by which the oneness of the world is poetically brought about’ (p.166). This is why metaphors such as Gaia, regeneration, planetary well-being and futures are more appealing to some than the hegemonically owned concepts. My argument– in complement to Blumenberg and Arendt’s view (see Bajohr 2015 for a comparative study between the two philosophers)– is that metaphors are a response to hegemonic concepts and, as they appear, they open perspectives and provoke dia-logues that might both revisit and reclaim the original concepts. Furthermore, existing meta-phors and new ones that might emerge as the dia-logue continues may also evolve into having a ‘life’ on their own, may replace existing con-cepts, become synonyms with them or simply 1 Dialectic asaTherapy Against theModern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Crises7submerge. Meaning, according to Wittgenstein (1953), is meaning-in-use, so, for theseconcepts to regain the openness they once had and beyond, they must be involved in dialogues. This book is my attempt in that direction.ReferencesArendt H (1968) Walter Benjamin. In: Arendt H (ed) Men in dark times. 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Pearson, NewYork1 Dialectic asaTherapy Against theModern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Criseshttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2829-4https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2829-4https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61684-5https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61684-5https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02002-3https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02002-3https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2021.34https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9578-3https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9578-3https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01914.xhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147481https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147481https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0045-3609.2005.00007.xhttps://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1885https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-016-9801-zhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-016-9801-zhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2009.11.028https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2009.11.028https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_3https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_3https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01058-3https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01058-3https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2013.11.1.100https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2013.11.1.100https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.04.003https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.04.003Part INature Across Times112Anima Mundi: Nature andPhilosophy inAncient Greece2.1 IntroductionBertrand Russell (1872–1970) has argued that the intellectual activity that spanned two centu-ries in Ancient Greece has been one of the most spectacular events in history. Their science, phi-losophy and arts established the foundations of Western civilisation (Russell 1959/2017). Martin Heidegger – fond of pre-Socratic philosophy – claimed, however, that this great beginning of Western thought was later forgotten across his-tory (see also Heidegger 1952, and Seidel 1966 for a detailed study on Heidegger and the pre- Socratics). In his view, the development of Western metaphysics was a degenerative process of ‘forgetting of being’ (see also Chap. 1). This forgetfulness, according to him, has had across history negative implications for the very essence of being human (Heidegger 1927). As we forget about being, I argue, we forget also about our nature, and about nature as a whole. This is prob-ably related to what Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) would later call a ‘double alienation’, from Earth and from the world that surrounds us (Macauley 1996b). Indeed, one could actually name it a human ‘triple alienation’: from non-human nature, from other humans and from oneself (see also Chap. 7).Thus, pre-Socratic perception of wholeness and connectedness in nature, and of humans as part of this ensemble, has been forgotten across Western history and, in so happening, we became alienated from the world around us, from our very essence. Ultimately, this has led the planet into the Anthropocene, the current moment in the geological history of the planet in which the human being’s impact on it is such that several planetary indicators have gone beyond average (Chap. 7). Interestingly, however, pre-Socratic thinking is in many ways shared not only by some modern philosophers such as Heidegger but also by ancestral peoples of the world, such as the Amerindians, and even by modern science, when one considers, for instance, some aspects of Margulis and Lovelock’s Gaia theory (see Chaps. 4, 6, 8 and 11).This chapter introduces Part I of this book by presenting some of the pre-Socratic thinking about nature, and then by discussing how this process of ‘forgetting’ of being and of nature begins in Ancient Greece, shortly after the pre- Socratic period. This process is somewhat related to language and meaning. The polysemy of the word ‘nature’ and its equivalents in most lan-guages of the world (Coscieme et al. 2020; Ducarme et al. 2020; see also Chap. 1) was already present in Ancient Greece. From the pre- Socratic through to Aristotle, the term ‘physis’ had a variety of meanings, such as (1) growing and becoming of life, (2) origin or birth, (3) inner nature (as opposed to accidental properties), (4) the material substrate of the world, and (5) the sum of all beings that self-generate (Röck 2016). This author shows that physis shifted between © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 F. R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_2http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_2&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_212Fig. 2.1 Word cloud of concepts, features and properties related to ‘nature’. The size of words relates to the frequency in which they appear in this chapter and are, therefore, related to views of nature in Ancient Greecebeing and becoming, and between essence and matter during the period that spanned from 640 to 320B.C.This chapter also introduces the various Greek approaches to dialogues and dialectics, which are also at the fundamental core of the argumentation of this book (see Fig. 2.1 for a word cloud of concepts and properties related to nature as seen in Ancient Greece).2.2 Pre-socratic NaturePre-Socratic thinkers are seen as those who ‘dis-covered’ nature (Naddaf 2010) and, as such, are also broadly acknowledged as the founders of Western philosophy and science (Theodossiou and Manimanis 2010). Thus, they are central as point of departure for Part I of this book. Cornford (1932) argued that science began when the pre- Socratic understood the universe as a ‘natural whole’, rather than partly natural and partly supernatural. Furthermore, in his words, this nat-ural whole has ‘unchanging ways of its own – ways that may be ascertained by human reason, but are beyond the control of human action’ (p.8). Clearly, this notion of nature being beyond human control (later to be reaffirmed by both Plato and Aristotle) has been absolutely forgotten in Modernity (Chap. 5).These early philosophers/scientists were largely concerned with the basic character of things and their basic element (Theodossiou and Manimanis 2010; Nicolaides 2017). They were also interested in order, which can be related to the fact that they perceived the world as one liv-ing organism, one organic system (Röck 2016). Table2.1 shows that the approximately 250years of the pre-Socratic period was highly prolific in 2 Anima Mundi: Nature andPhilosophy inAncient Greece13terms of theories about nature. Many of such thoughts remained influential and were partly or fullyrevised and incorporated by modern sci-ence, from Charles Darwin (1809–1882) to Albert Einstein (1879–1955) to Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) and James Lovelock (1919–2022), and by modern philosophy, from Martin Heidegger to Bruno Latour.Chapter 1 presented Hans Blumenberg’s non- conceptuality theory as one of the guiding threads for the argument of this book, and pre-Socratic thought is an important milestone in this sense, partly because of the polysemy that developed around the word ‘nature’ (or ‘physis’), but also because of the potential implications of some of the thoughts of this (long forgotten) period for the contemporary issues addressed by this book, namely sustainability and futures. Take, for instance, Heraclitus. While Hegel (1770–1831) is known as the father of dialectic as a logical method, for him, Heraclitus was the precursor of this practice as more than a technique to promote reflection (Zwart 2022). Heraclitus shows nature as inherently dialectical: it is less about ‘being’ than it is about ‘becoming’ (William 1985). According to this ancient Greek philosopher, ‘nature loves to hide’ (Robertson 2017). However, Heraclitus praises the diversity of opinion and thought – some may be truer than others, but diversity matters to a transformative dialectic (Williams 1985).Table 2.1 is an attempt to synthesise in a few words 250years of an exciting time for curiosity, imagination and discoveries. My brief narrative for those rich times is that diversity becomes one and whole when love predominates as the bind-ing force. Nothing is pure, everything is part of everything (Anaxagoras), but everything is made out of the same thing (Thales), which turns nature into one (Parmenides). Plurality– despite all the beautiful planetary diversity– is therefore an illu-sion (Zeno), particularly because every being is also ‘becoming’ (Heraclitus). Even if we reduce all elements and beings to a group of atoms sur-rounded by void (Democritus), or to equations (Pythagoras), oneness prevails due to love as the predominant ‘glue’ (Empedocles).2.3 Socrates, Plato, andtheHuman NatureThis narrative of mine about pre-Socratic think-ing is by no means chronological. Since this book perceives time as one and non-linear, I very much follow the perception of Russell (1959/2017) that any attempt to describe humanity’s thinking (Western or not) from a chronological perspec-tive shall fail. Although chapters in the first sec-tion are organised by chronological ages, inside and between chapters, I move back and forth in linear time as regards both authors and ideas. Values and ideas do not respect linearity of time. They may become hegemonic or they may be for-gotten or silenced, by they do not simply die.Table 2.1 Pre-Socratic thinkers and their perceptions about nature (based on Nicolaides 2017)ThinkerPeriod BC Main thoughtsThales c. 624–545Water is the primary substance. Despite diversity, everything is made out of the same thingAnaximander c. 610–540The infinite, for being neutral, is the primary substanceAnaximenes c. 588–524The air is the primary substancePythagoras c. 570–495Things are numbers: The underlying principle of nature is mathematicalHeraclitus c. 540–480Everything is in a state of becoming instead of being. Fire is the primary substanceParmenides c. 515–445Nature is one and unchangingAnaxagoras c. 500–428Nothing is pure. In everything there is a part of everythingEmpedocles c. 495–435Nature is four elements (air, earth, fire and water) and two forces (love and strife)Zeno c. 490–430Oneness: Plurality is an illusionDemocritus c. 460–370Atoms: Smallest pieces of matter surrounded by void2.3 Socrates, Plato, and the Human Nature14Some would argue that pre-Socratic thinking became increasingly materialistic, as one can tell from the late atomic phase with Democritus. In reaction to that, Sophists such as Protagoras (c. 490–420 B.C) and Gorgias (c. 483–375) brought the human question to the forefront and paved the way for Socrates’ (c. 469–399B.C.) humanism (Demirci 2012). Indeed he, who was not a Sophist per se, emerges as a reaction to the materialistic drift of the late pre-Socratic philosophy (Cornford 1932) and, with him, the question about the pres-ence of humans as part of nature becomes piv-otal. Socrates’s main counterpoint to the thought of his predecessors in science and philosophy was his concern with humans’ place in the uni-verse: what is it that turns humans good as indi-viduals? Thus, Socrates stands as not only the father of philosophy but also as the father of eth-ics (Dhillon and Lim 2016) and, indeed, as a developer of Heraclitus dialectic (so essential to my argument in this book). The belief that from questions and answers understanding would arise is the backbone of dialectic and was turned into practice by Socrates (Meyer 1980). Abram (2017) explains that the Socratic dialectic pushed speak-ers to separate themselves from their own words. In the absence of written records, as in those days, oral repetition preserved culture. Socrates brought this tradition to an end, even without the shift to written practice. By then, all practice was oral, and even Socratic thinking ended up by reaching us by the writings of others, such as Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes, and, there-fore, there is considerable controversy around his persona and what may have led to his condemna-tion to death by a jury of Athenian citizens (Gower 1992).Plato was perhaps the key thinker to forward the notion that the physical world and its beings were not arranged by chance or meaninglessly, but that they had value, meaning and purpose (Turan 2013). Plato spoke of the ‘anima mundi’ the soul of the universe and source of all indi-vidual souls, including that of the Earth. Thus, our planet should be respected rather than exploited (Ruse 2013). This suggests a percep-tion of the Earth and the cosmos as sacred, which echoes Plato’s references to a higher, spiritual level of reality as the ultimate or eternal sub-stance of things, wherefrom a sense of purpose and meaning emerges (Ikerd 2016; see also Chaps. 3 and 13). Thus, it is with Socrates and mainly Plato that the cosmos ceased to be per-ceived as a non-human mechanism but one which functions according to a ‘will’ related to both cre-ation and governance (Turan 2013), and also bal-ance and harmony (Ruse 2013). Parmenides’s notion of ‘oneness’ is upgraded by Plato to a one-ness that is both intelligent and sacred. This notion most likely influenced Plato’s interest in the future. For him, it is important to think about the future to influence what we do in the present (Ruse 2013): time as one whole. Thus, Plato somehow amalgamated pre-Socratic thinking (philosophy of nature) and the Socratic perspec-tive (philosophy of knowledge) into one (Kahn 2013). Furthermore, he pushed dialectic to a point to where it was less about disruption and more about elevation of the soul and enhance-ment of knowledge (Stephens 1993, Chap. 1).Of particular interest to the themes covered in this book are the notions attributed to Socrates (1) that to understand human nature it is neces-sary to understand nature as a whole (German 2017); (2) that there is no essential difference between the three broad categories of living beings– humans, animals and plants (Theodossiou and Manimanis 2010); (3) that dialogues for mutual understanding are essential to building a common world (Villa 1998), and also, those attributed to Plato (Ruse 2013): (4) the anima mundi, or Earth as an intelligent and sacred living organism; (5) the future as a compass to the pres-ent (and not the other way around); and (6) that philosophical achievements depend on conversa-tions, dialogues. These six points will reappear in the various chapters that follow.2.4 Aristotle,Theophrastus andNatural HistoryAristotle (384–322 BC) and his student, Theophrastus (371–286 BC), were two of the last great philosophers/scientists of Ancient Greece and are known as the founding fathers of 2 Anima Mundi: Nature andPhilosophy inAncient Greece15Zoology and Botany (Thanos 1994) or, further-more, animal and plant ecology, respectively (Macauley 1996a). For Aristotle, nature is the genesis of growing things, and this growth is movement. He brings the notion of cycles – movement and rest, life and death– in a perpet-ual series of new beginnings (Holmes 2013). In that sense, another concept (or non-concept) dear to this book– regeneration– was also of interest to the philosopher. In ‘The History of Animals’, Aristotle (2018) discusses which organs of which species can or cannot ‘grow again’. Indeed, regeneration was incorporated in much of Greek mythology, such as in the cases of Prometheus and Hydra (Elliot and Sanchez-Alvarado 2018).Aristotle was the most famous student of Plato, but in some occasions, his views differed from those of his teacher (Ruse 2013), while in other cases, he examined the same points in more detail. For instance, Aristotle argued that the soul– a topic so dear to Plato– had three dimen-sions (Gilleard 2017): a vegetative soul (common to all forms of life: plants, animals and humans), a sentient soul (not present in plants), and a ratio-nal soul (only present in humans). For him, the capacity for self-nutrition, which is related to both growth and decay, is common to all life forms as the vegetative soul.However, his pupil Theophrastus, the bota-nist, saw plants as autonomous beings rather than servants to humans (McKertich and Shilpa 2016). He argued that plants had three dimen-sions of nature: the nature of the plant itself and its own particular purpose; the nature of the environment where the plant lives; and human agency, which could affect both the plant and its environment (Hughes 1985). Main messages from Aristotle and Theophrastus that will resur-face across the upcoming chapters include, in the case of the former, life regeneration and new beginnings, and, for the latter philosopher, the autonomy and agency of plants. Furthermore, they have both moved forward in the dialectic tradition, although with a number of differences from the Platonic approach that I use in this book (Baltussen 2000).2.5 ‘Greens’ andGoddessesThis environmental panorama of ancient times is conflictive and contradictory with some of the natural philosophy and knowledge philosophy of those days, particularly with the notion conveyed by most of those thinkers regarding nature’s sacredness (see Table 2.2). For instance, Plato described deforestation in the mountains of Athens (Hughes 1983) and associated it with issues related to water supply. Hughes (2014) even argues that Plato was probably one of the earliest advocates of forest restoration. Moreover, the Greek philosopher is also the one who said that nature is what one cannot control. ‘Anything which is contrary to nature is dangerous’, said Theophrastus (Hughes 1985). He even specu-lated on climatic variation as a consequence of deforestation (Coates 1998). In Ancient Rome it was no different, and Vitruvius (80–15 BC) warned that pollution due to mining practices was dangerous to the health of workers (Hughes 2014), while Pliny (23–79 AD) even evoked ‘Mother Earth’ to warn against deforestation and mining (Holmes 2013).‘Mother Earth’ unequivocally directs our thoughts to Greek Goddess Gaia. As we saw in Chap. 1, Gaia is the Earth Goddess, a scientific theory and a current metaphor for the interdepen-dence of all things on the planet. Agamben Table 2.2 Philosophical terminology and definitions often used in the literature to notions, thoughts and values of Ancient Greek thinkers (adapted from Scofield 2004)Term DefinitionAnima mundiThe earth as a living organismAnimism Nature is alive and intelligentHylozoism Matter has motion, is animatedPantheism God is equated with the forces and natural laws of the universePneuma Air, breath, spirit: That which animatesPsyche or soulThe vital principle of organic development; the form that gives rise to the characteristics of an organismSympatheia All is interconnected and interactive within the whole of the living earth and the universe; cosmic sympathyWorld soul The soul of the living, organic cosmos that extends beyond the earth itself2.5 ‘Greens’ and Goddesses16(2020), in a recent essay, reminds us that Greek mythology has Gaia as the Earth Goddess from the soil through to the atmosphere. A nurturing, mother-like Goddess. However, there is also Chtonie, an underground Goddess, related to darkness, to hiding, to the abyssal. According to this mythology, Agamben says, Earth has a dou-ble reality: the darkness of the Chtonic under-ground contrasts with the flowering and shining Gaian surface. Agamben argues that Gaia has reached the current unprecedented levels of dev-astation and pollution precisely due to the fact that humans decided to extract elements and energy to supply their consumption needs from the Chtonic underground. He even calls the underground, where petroleum and other mineral extractives lie, ‘thanatosphere’, the sphere of the dead.2.6 Final Remarks: Contradictions andDisputesWhile Greek philosophers hailed the sacredness of nature, deforestation and pollution due to min-ing were already going on. This contradiction, of course, extends in future times and is arguably the cause of fall of various civilisations. On the other hand, either consciously or unconsciously, many of the ideas – and particularly values – which emerged in Ancient Greece are still pres-ent in contemporary society. They influence modern science, other forms of knowledge and customs. The Gaia theory, for instance, is evi-dence of that. Interestingly, at least according to Agamben, it did not pay too much attention to the Chtonic, underground side of the Earth. Knowledge and values from Ancient Greece should not be forgotten as we move into the future. Dialectic, on the other hand, increasingly became more of a dispute than a dialogical pro-cess towards agreements and emergence, espe-cially as humanity moved into Modernity. Upcoming chapters continue to explore contra-dictions and synergies between thought, dis-course and practice in relation to nature and sustainability.ReferencesAbram D (2017) The spell of the sensuous, 2nd edn. Vintage Books, NewYorkAgamben G (2020) Gaia e Ctonia. Quodlibet, Dec 28, 2020. 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Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_33Saints, Witches andPoets: Nature andReligion intheMiddle Ages3.1 IntroductionThe Middle Ages are a period that spanned over a thousand years, between Classical Antiquity and Renaissance, roughly from the fourth century through to the fourteenth (Pounds 2005). To call such a long period ‘dark ages’ is to overlook the wealth of ideas and actions that emerged in those days, despite religious ruling and social decline and injustice in Europe and elsewhere in the world (Cardoso and Garcia 2009). Some would argue that the natural-philosophical perceptions of the Classical Antiquity were followed by a mediaeval stasis (Foster 2020). However, it is during mediaeval times when religious thinkers such as Augustine (354–430), Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) addressed the relationship of humans and nature. It is also when the prophet Mohammed (571–632) has lived, followed by the ‘Holy Quran’ being assembled and showing nature as a whole, a complex system with mutual support and pro-tection between components and elements (Mănoiu et al. 2016). Moreover, this is when some essential Greek (such as from Aristotle and Avicenna in the twelfth century) and Arabic texts (such as the Quran) became translated (Meirinhos and Pulido 2011). This allowed science to gradu-ally advance into producing a merge between Ancient Greece’s understanding of nature with Christian doctrine (Armand 2012). On the other hand, the violence and brutality of the period– inflicted especially upon women and pagans – were also much influenced by the kinds of relationships they were perceived to have with nature (Riddle 2010). Indeed, it is across the Middle Ages in Europe that the relationship between humans and non-human elements of nature, in practice, more markedly shifted from one of respect and reverence to one of antago-nism and control, resulting in ecological crises (Aberth 2013).Nature was also very much present in mediae-val arts and literature, often as analogy or meta-phor for the human self– unlike modern nature, whichis approached in science and the arts as ‘the other’ (Robertson 2017). Of course, it was also of concern to the emergence of what we now call modern science. Ball (2008) has claimed that by 1300, a scientific worldview was already in place that attempted to reconcile with the reli-gious pervasiveness of the time. In his view, this effort ended up in the wide chasm that now exists between reason and faith. For instance, recent historiography suggests that alchemy was more than metallic transmutation, and that in late mediaeval times and early Renaissance it com-bined theory and experimentation that moved beyond esoterism and closer to modern science (Martinón-Torres 2011; Newman 2011; Nummedal 2011).This chapter examines nature in the Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the tension between faith and reason, religion and science, http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_3&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_320ActorsPolicyPower ChristianityInsidersSaints PoetsOutsidersHereticsFig. 3.1 Schematic representation of some power rela-tions in European mediaeval times. Religion, the main form of interpretation of reality, was intimately aligned with monarchic regimes and violently repressed alterna-tive views and practices (e.g. against those labelled as witches and heretics). Saints and artists, such as the poets, were ‘insiders’, but their values, ethics and attitudes often challenged or, at least, markedly contradicted the brutal practices of the establishmentreverence and control and on the role of the arts in this period. This brief appraisal intends not only to provide a temporal bridge between Classical Antiquity with Renaissance but also to identify the early symptoms of the divorce between reason and emotion, and between humans and non-humans, so typical of the mod-ern era. Figure3.1 summarises some hierarchical power relations of the time, with their disputes and contradictions.3.2 SaintsAugustine, in the transition from the fourth to the fifth century, argued that nature is good, and thus it is either God or created by God (Meirinhos and Pulido 2011). The first possi-bility, of nature being God, resembles the pan-theistic view of some Greek philosophers (see Chap. 2) and of Spinoza (1632–1677; see also Chap. 5), which despite some controversies (Parkinson 1977) is often associated with ideas of wholeness and oneness (Levine 1994), dear to our discussion about sustainability in this book. However, Augustine continues, humans see nature through the lens of ‘utility’– with either greed or aversion– and not for what it is (Ledoux 2005). This argument suggests that the perception of nature as commodity or as an obstacle is not exclusive to modernity (Koons 2008; see also Chaps. 5 and 7), and Augustine’s statement might indicate that this is a negative feature of humankind at all times. Ledoux’s (2005) take on Augustinian view of nature is also a backbone for our discussion on sustain-ability in Part II of this book:For Augustine the ideal would be to see nature as God sees it, feeling deeply both its beauty and its impermanence, loving nature without clinging to it. With such clear seeing would come love and the motivation for sustained and skillful action (p.331)Ledoux’s readings on Augustine go on to suggest that there is a lot of common ground between traditional Christianism and secular ecologists. He even quotes Pope John Paul II who said that the principle of love of neighbour, including the poor, is to be extended to love of nature. We have already seen love as a binding force in the pre- Socratic thinker Empedocles (Chap. 2), and we will discuss more about it in Chaps. 4 and 12.The notion of love of nature as an extension of love of neighbour is also the essence of the thought and practice of another holy mediaeval character, some 800 years later: Francis of Assisi (or Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone). Moreover, love of self completes the love trinity 3 Saints, Witches andPoets: Nature andReligion intheMiddle Ages21of Francis to merge all three into love of God (Bodo 2000, and we will see more of the love trinity in Chaps. 4 and 12). Pope Francis (2015) highlighted St. Francis as the symbol of care for the vulnerable and for nature. Care, in turn, has been hailed by Heidegger (1927) and by Brazilian liberation theologist Leonardo Boff (2011) as an essential component of sustainabil-ity (see also Chap. 12). Francis’ key principle was that if humans can see themselves as broth-ers and sisters of the elements of nature, they can be brothers and sisters among themselves. The simplicity of his thought and practice was such that he did not agree with people who called him a Saint, since he was not a theorist of spiritual life and only spoke of what he knew, heard and felt (Spoto 2003). Despite his reluc-tance in life to be called a Saint, two years after his death he was proclaimed as such– now he is known as the Patron Saint of Animals and of the Environment. Interestingly, however, although I used the word ‘nature’ repeatedly in this para-graph, Francis of Assisi never used the term ‘natura’. Instead, he used ‘Earth’, ‘the world’ and ‘all creatures that are under the heavens’, which are the terms he found in the Bible (Sorrell 1988). Another angle of St. Francis, rel-evant to this book, refers to the specific type of dialectic derived from his dialogues with non- human elements of nature. Indeed, Sorrell (1988) argues that this practice was something of a trend among mediaeval ascetic movements characterised by their interaction with the natu-ral world and their appreciation for the environment.Shortly after Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas emerged and became key to the develop-ment of the Catholic scholastics, the mediaeval philosophy that aimed to conciliate faith and rea-son (McHugh 2018). His vision was strongly influenced by Aristotle, according to Bertrand Russell (1959/2017), and to date remains very influential to Western secular thought, including in politics and science. Some argue that his phi-losophy is also present in the current environ-mental debate: for instance, his influence is perceived in Pope Francis’ encyclical letter ‘Laudato sí’ (Northcott 2016; McHugh 2018). The central controversy around the environmen-tal component in Aquinas’ philosophy is well expressed in the debate between Jenkins (2003) and Benzoni (2005). Benzoni has an anthropo-centric interpretation of Aquinas, i.e. that non- human nature is instrumental to humans. Conversely, Jenkins reads in the philosopher a non-instrumental view on non-human creatures and nature as a whole. The subtleties of language (and concepts, as discussed in Chap. 1) in Aquinas’ definitions of eternal law and natural law in Summa Theologiae are definitely behind that (McHugh 2018; Reyna 2018). Aquinas said that ‘the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law’ (Aquinas 1265–1273; parts I and II, question 91, article 2, p.1511). Thus, all beings, humans and non-humans, are governed by the eternal law, which therefore embodies natural law (Valenzuela 2017). Natural law directs human action (McHugh 2018), and Aquinas said that, ‘from all creatures, the rational one is subject to Divine providence (…) providing for itself and for the others’ (Aquinas 1265–1273; parts I and II, ques-tion 91, article 2, p. 1511). Valenzuela (2017) highlights correctly that by ‘others’, the philoso-pher means all animate and inanimate beings in nature. Thus, the importance of caring for other species and for our own human species– foster-ing an attitude of interspecies friendship (Reyna 2018)– is central to human responsibility in the eternal law. Aquinas has also been examined from the perspective of his dialectic: Wippel (1985) argues that his is a dialecticbetween being and non-being and that plurality is equated with otherness (Table3.1).Table 3.1 Some of the main thoughts of the Catholic Saints that are applicable to the discussion on nature, sus-tainability and futures in this bookThinker Period Main thoughtsAugustine 354–430Love of nature as an extension of love of neighbourFrancis of Assisi1181–1226Love of nature, love of neighbour, love of self merge into love of GodThomas Aquinas1225–1274Humans providing for themselves and for other species3.2 Saints223.3 WitchesIsabelle Stengers (2018) says that our contempo-rary society tends to forget that we, moderns, descend from those who promoted the eradica-tion of witches, starting in late mediaeval times, in Europe. She defines this action as a violent process of construction of what would later become a set of modern beliefs, ‘in the name of civilisation and reason’ (p.103). Table3.2 pro-vides a timeline for witchcraft and witch-hunting in Europe, according to the detailed sociological account of Russell (1972) and additions based on Ben-Yehuda (1980).During three centuries in Europe (~fifteenth through to seventeenth) and at the end of the sev-enteenth century in the United States (Foster- Feigenbaum 2018) – i.e. well into Renaissance (Chap. 4)– when patriarchal academic, medical and scientific institutions gained prestige, women were hunted down, basically for being knowl-edge holders of powers related to nature, espe-cially plants (Achterberg 1991, Federici 2018). Estimates are that hundreds of thousands (Ben- Yehuda 1980, Achterberg 1991) to four million women (Green Anarchist 2003) were killed for what was defined by male authorities of the time as witchcraft. Women’s knowledge was perceived as threatening by these institutions and by the Church. Federici (2018) argues that this was related to the capitalist discipline, in its attempt at a mechanistic rationalisation of the natural world. The publication of Malleus Maleficarum (1486, ‘The Hammer of Witches’) speeded up the pro-cess of hunting down witches and heretics since it established guidelines and procedures to deter-mine and brutally punish supposedly devilish powers (Brodel 2003).However, witchcraft has been present in many different cultures, and it is not always associated with unproblematic, positive practices, valued by individuals and societies in a variety of cultures (such as healing, changing the weather, garden-ing, etc.). Indeed, terms such as ‘witchcraft’ and ‘sorcery’ often refer to a diversity of practices, some of which may have negative societal impacts, such as sacrificing lives (Forsyth 2016). As an outcome, Forsyth (2016) points out the increasing regulatory and legal initiatives pro-moted by the United Nations and national gov-ernments both in the Global South and in the Table 3.2 Timeline of witchcraft in mediaeval Europe (adapted from Russell 1972 and Ben-Yehuda 1980)Years Definition Main features300–700Transformation of paganismChristianity synthesises various European cultural traditions and deliberately rejected magic700–1140Popular witchcraft and heresyPaganism nearly disappeared and the influence of heresy on witchcraft increased1140–1230Demonology, catharism and witchcraftWitchcraft and the hatred of witches among Christians grow. Christian demonology rooted in Jewish conception of evil. Rise of Catharism as a Christian heretic movement1230–1300Antinomianism, scholasticism and the inquisitionInquisition was founded, scholasticism established and charges of witchcraft were first allowed. Antinomian heretic movements multiply1300–1360Witchcraft and rebellionBeginning of transition to Renaissance and power of church and empire gives sign of decline. Plagues and black death. Witchcraft expansion. Legal amalgamation of witchcraft with heresy1360–1427The beginning of witch-huntingStrongly related with decline of power of empire and church. Women were 85% of the targets, but Jews and heretics were also persecuted1427–1486The classical formulation of the witch phenomenonPublication of discourses on witchcraft proliferate and culminate with the publication of Malleus Maleficarum (1486)– all of that backed up and increased repression3 Saints, Witches andPoets: Nature andReligion intheMiddle Ages23Global North, which calls for more empirical studies on the impact of such legal backgrounds.Stengers (2018) claims that, today, it is not a matter of ‘resurrecting’ ancestral (positive) witchcraft cultures but of ‘reactivating’ them, as an important step to trigger imagination, open-ness and learning. Kivi (2022) further argues that the figure of the witch helps us understand wom-anhood and femininity in a non-hierarchical fash-ion. Ultimately, I trust that the relevance of revisiting and discussing this issue also lies in the evidence of the intimate relationships between humans (particularly women) and non-human elements of nature (and we will see more of that as we discuss ecofeminism in Chap. 11). Last but not least, to investigate the marked contradiction between some of the beauty of the mediaeval Christian thought and theories (as we just saw in Sect.3.2) and the brutality of witch-hunting can also tell a lot about the relationship between nature and power.3.4 Poetry andLiteratureMediaeval poetry and literature, especially in its latest period, often ‘gave voice’ to nature. In con-temporary times, there is enough criticism and scepticism regarding those who speak on nature’s behalf (Vogel 2006) and, understandably, there is some discussion whether literature then human-ised nature (e.g. Barros 2001) or naturalised humans (e.g. Farneti 2009). Either way, in the Middle Ages, this writing style seems to have emerged as a claim for human-non-human com-plementarity (Robertson 2017).Unlike Heraclitus’s claim that ‘nature loves to hide’ (Chap. 2), Robertson (2017) argues that it was ‘outspoken’ in European late mediaeval lit-erature: at times, impersonated in characters such as Lady Nature, other times as speaking animals, nature’s voice often turned to the subject of love. The author suggests that giving a body and a voice to nature was both ethically and aestheti-cally necessary. Another interesting argument of Robertson (2017) that parallels our previous dis-cussion about witches and witch-hunting is that nature shifted between being an ‘it’ (impersonal, immaterial) and being a ‘she’ (impersonated, with agency). Nevertheless, in both ways, nature and love are an expression of life, of life force, of birth and of regeneration. Spraycar (1980), for instance, sees in the opening lines of ‘Canterbury Tales’ a parallel between nature’s regenerative power in spring, with humans’ capacity to regen-erate their soul through pilgrimage. Regeneration– as we have seen as fundamental for Aristotle and Theophrastus (Chap. 2)– will resurface in the upcoming chapters and remains central to the argument of this book.In mediaeval Middle East, ‘Arabian Nights’ (anonymous author, probably dating from the ninth century/2015) is one such example. Ghazoul (1983) argues that its narrative is more concerned with ‘to be’ than with ‘to mean’. The same can be said of Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ (1348–1353/1971) and Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ (1390–1400/2005) in Europe. It is perhaps no coincidence that Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) transformed these tales from oral tradition in homonymous films collectively called ‘The Trilogy of Life’ (Decameron 1971, Canterbury Tales 1972, and Arabian Nights 1974)– in reference to times when humans were a more integral part of nature. Bocaccio’s ‘Decameron’ has been interpreted as a statement on the transience of values and permanence of natural impulses and dispositions (Farneti 2009). Alongthe same lines, nature often precedes ethics in Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ (Stanbury 2004). The perception of beauty and strength in ‘naturally being human’ has been claimed to provide a bridge between ancient Roman philosopher Cicero’s (106–43 B.C.) Humanitas and the rise of Humanism during Renaissance (Grudin and Grudin 2012). In Chaps. 4 and 5, we examine how this shift from ‘as strong as nature because we are nature’ to ‘stronger than nature’ happened.3.5 Final Remarks: Contradictions andDisputesOne thousand years of Middle Ages also revealed a number of contradictions and disputes around the concept of nature and how human beings 3.5 Final Remarks: Contradictions and Disputes24relate to it. From perceptions of wholeness (with love as binding force of all elements) of some of the Catholic Saints to witch-hunting by the same Catholic Church; from attempts to naturalise humans to approaches that humanised nature, through poetry and literature. Dialectic took new shapes as in the case of Francis of Assisi and other mediaeval ascetic movements that let emerge a dialectic between humans and non- humans, whereas Aquinas explored a dialectic between being and non-being. Meanwhile, land exploration through agriculture increased and led to ecological crises, apparently irrespective of all values that were in dispute. Contradictions of these kinds, as we have already seen, were also present in Ancient Greece and will also be seen in the coming chapters as we move into the present. Similarly, a number of ideas and values that emerged in mediaeval times are still present in contemporary society, either active or dormant. They should not be forgotten as we move into the future. Upcoming chapters continue to explore contradictions and synergies between thought, discourse and practice in relation to nature and sustainability.ReferencesAberth J (2013) An environmental history of the middle ages: the crucible of nature. Routledge, LondonAchterberg J (1991/2013) Woman as Healer. Shambhala, Boston, LondonAnônimo (2015) As Mil e Uma Noites. 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Rev Metaphys 38(3):563–590Referenceshttps://doi.org/10.1179/174582311X13129418299063https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71377-9_4https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71377-9_4https://doi.org/10.1086/660140https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563916666820https://doi.org/10.1086/660142https://doi.org/10.1086/660142https://doi.org/10.2307/2708674https://doi.org/10.2307/2708674https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2017.1416728https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2017.1416728https://doi.org/10.17421/2498-9746-03-1727© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 F. R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_44Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans4.1 IntroductionModernity covered 500 years, from humanist pre-modernity to the great acceleration of the twentieth century. For many, we are still living through it, for others, we have already embarked in a transition to a new era, one that nobody is quite sure how it will look like. Clearly, the speed of change in Modernity was much faster than what happened in a thousand years of Middle Ages (Chap. 3). This is to the extent that approxi-mately each century in Modernity has a brand of its own (Table4.1). Altogether, these five centu-ries represented the escalation and consolidation of the divorce between humans and the non- human components of nature (Marés 2017), to the extent that hegemonic modern society led the planet into the Anthropocene. While mediaeval philosophers and artists were concerned with God and, to a large extent, with nature (Chap. 3), Renaissance (and Modernity as a whole) thinkers had their attention on humanity (Russell 1959/2017). This is at the very essence of the chi-asms that originated many of Modernity’s dichot-omies: between science and religion, between coloniser and oppressed and even, as Robertson (2017) describes it, between love and physics. Mediaeval writers often combined knowledge about natural philosophy and artistic flair to per-sonify nature and address issues such as love and sexuality. The personification of Nature largely died out in early Modernity, revealing a humanist mistrust of an anthropomorphised Nature, as if humans and non-humans pertained to different worlds (Robertson 2017).However, throughout Modernity, there were notable exceptions to this dualistic thinking, in science, religion, philosophy and the arts. As we have seen in Ancient Greece and in the Middle Ages (Chaps. 2 and 3), the human-nature rela-tionship is historically a realm of dispute and contradictions, and Modernity is perhaps when this became more evident. Astronomer and Astrologist Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) is one such notable exception. Following a long tradi-tion that went back nearly 2000years connecting the thought of Pythagoras, Augustine and Copernicus, Kepler figured from the orbit of the planets a heavenly chorus in which Mercury would be a soprano planet, Venus and Earth con-traltos, Mars tenor and Jupiter and Saturn bari-tones. Kepler (1619/2010, p.57) said:By means of your concords of various voices and through your ears, she [nature] has whispered to the human mind, the favourite daughter of God, the Creator, how she exists in the innermost bosom.Kepler’s musical reading of the planets is another evidence of the notion that nature is one of the most complex, polysemic words there is, although it might seem so familiar to us that we all use it with great regularity (Soper 1995), as we saw in all previous chapters. This chapter focuses on sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and inter-http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_4&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_428Table 4.1 The main brand of each of the centuries that are comprised in Modernity (including pre-Modernity or Renaissance)Century Brand Main eventsSixteenth Humanistic New notion of nature with European arrival at the New WorldSeventeenth Scientific Modern science rises and, with it, the impression that nature can be understood and, therefore, controlledEighteenth Freedom and dutiesFrench revolution, industrial revolution and nature becomes commodityNineteenth Rights Materialism, human rights and concerns with the state of nature begin to emergeTwentieth Great accelerationSpeed of industrialisation provokes dramatic changes in average indicators of Earth system function, such as those regarding climatetwines the colonisation of the Americas by the Europeans and the advent of modern science, as well as analyses the implication of these events for human-nature relationships.4.2 Modern Science RisesThe pioneers of modern science, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), René Descartes (1596–1650) and Isaac Newton (1643–1727), played a fundamental role in the develop-ment of the modern science, from heliocentrism to the scientific method. Cartesian reductionism is central to modern scientific practice and has to do with reducing the complexity of the whole to its parts, in order to understand the parts and, only then, by assembling the knowledge of the parts, to approach the whole and understand it (Thomas 2021). This practice attained the gigan-tic success of making science the dominant lan-guage for interpretation of reality in the contemporary world for at least the last 250years. However, it presents two problems. First, scien-tists clung to the understanding of the parts and distanced themselves from the whole. Reductionism is an essential part of the scientific process, but holism is at least equally an indis-pensable approach (Mittelstraβ 2015). Holism is prone to lead scientific enterprise to finding emergent properties of systems– a considerable challenge today, for instance, to Sustainability Science (Chap. 8). Second, by placing itself in the position of both observer and controller through science and its applied by-product, tech-nology (Chap. 9), humanity alienated itself from nature. These two points are related to the rise of the Anthropocene epoch and to the current plan-etary crises.However,of Ancient Greek philoso-phy are often called ‘dark ages’ or ‘mediaeval stasis’. On the contrary, Fabio aims at convincing us that this is not justified. The thinking of the times has religious, political and poetic implications in today’s debates. Mediaeval thinkers, often observed and also taken particular notice of by Fabio, were the Saints Augustine, Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas to whom I may add Hildegard von Bingen. However, these are very few outstanding people in the thousand years of the middle ages from the fourth to the fourteenth century compared to the richness of the Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance between which the middle ages cast a somewhat narrow bridge.The Renaissance is the following characteristic age in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with numerous pioneers of modern science in only 200 years, Nicolaus Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes and Isaac Newton as named by Fabio. Scientifically, it introduced reduction-ism and with John Locke empiricism as methodological approaches. In the thoughts about human-nature relationships, it moved the attention to human-ity. Its integration of science, philosophy and religion is an upcoming concern again to-date (Lüttge 2023a). A very dark mark is remaining in the times though, a paradoxical dichotomy between enlightenment and violence. Prosecution of ‘witches’ came up and dominated between 1450 and 1750 and inquisition was going on well into the Renaissance. The last witch processes occurred close to the start of the nineteenth century. What can we think about humankind? The dichotomy goes on violently to date between the marvellous human creativity in art, literature and poetry, architecture, science, technol-ogy and the greatest mutual cruelties in hateful aggressions and senseless wars.Fabio’s look at the late modernity is going from the late eighteenth into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with also entering the Anthropocene by 1950 at the latest. A divorce between nature and culture emerges. We need to understand what is nature and culture, respectively. There is the nature of the self, the social and the environment. Environmentalism is culminating in the philosophy of ecology, ecosophy. From a collection of things, philosophy moves to processualism, i.e. from thing-ontology to process-ontology (Nicholson and Dupré 2018). Fabio’s stressing intuition and duration leads into the philosophy of time (Sieroka 2018, 2020) with its intimate relation to sustainability. Considering the putative border dividing nature and culture, I notice dialogue and dialectics when we look at our colloquial language describing the practice of growing vegetables or microorganisms on a plate of agar. These are natural biological entities but we call them cultures.The dialogues take us into the last Chap. 6 of Part I of the book on post-modern movementand post-normal times. The prefix ‘post’ marks a fence Forewordixaround past reality. The move across the fence is a delicate step with transi-tions into uncertainties of an unknown future, chaos, contradictions and com-plexity. Considering nature across times in Part I, the role of science has changed. In the modern world view, science was the only form of knowing. In the traditional world view and the postmodern world view before and after that, respectively, science was not the only form of knowing. The chapter introduces ecosophy with three ecologies, i.e. environmental, social and indi-vidual. In these delicate circumstances, the author exerts his abilities of pro-viding balanced orientation. The outlook remains, that in post-normal times, notwithstanding crises, desirable futures may still be achieved with nature conservation transitions and Gaia’s autopoietic self-organising dynamic sta-bility of the biosphere. This last chapter of Part I digests the contents of the previous five chapters. It is a legacy of the author leading into Part II with the emergence of sustainability.All the following Parts (II to IV) of the remaining two thirds of the book focus on sustainability, its emergence, its deepening and its futures. Emergence is normally attached to novelty, i.e. to something very new borne out by inte-gration of preexisting modules (Scarano 2019; Wegner and Lüttge 2019; Lüttge 2023a). There are more than 300 definitions of sustainability in the literature. The essence is that from the eras it emerges as an antidote for the malaises of the Anthropocene. Fabio fathoms its moral and ethical values on the basis of Hans Jonas’ ‘Prinzip Verantwortung’ (principle of responsibility; Jonas 1979). He also asks if sustainability is a science. It rests on three pillars, social, economic and environmental. Under these pillars illustrated in the book, with trans-disciplinarity it emerges from social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. There are a substantial view and a relational view of sustainability. The discussion of these contrasting but cooperating views in the book draws me to surrender to the temptation to suggest also casting a view across to the distinction of thing- or substance-ontology with its many contradictions and process-ontology with approaches of solving many prob-lems (Dupré 2021; Nicholson and Dupré 2018; Lüttge 2023a, b). Sustainability is a science of the whole.With viewing the whole and the emergent features of sustainability, we also enter a socio-political-economical realm and the techno-sphere as a cen-tral space. Technology arises from the relation of natural science and engi-neering. Due to the irreversible processes in the Anthropocene, particularly climate change, transitions are needed to overcome the unsustainability of prevailing social systems. Innovations foster transitions targeting both socio- technical and socio-ecological developments. Psychology of man is associ-ated with accepting that human habitability on Earth becomes a technical issue. From these socio-economical-technological facets of sustainability, Fabio moves us further into politics with the political involvements of gov-ernments, companies, non-government organisations (NGOs) and others as well as individuals in electorates and the private sector. Actions and conven-tions are listed including those of UN conferences regarding Human Environment, Environment and Development, and Sustainable Development, the latter in the 1992 conference at Rio de Janeiro involving governments and comprising Climate Change, Biological Diversity and Desertification. ForewordxCompanies must change from being self-interested exploiters to ethical stew-ards of planetary well-being. Individuals must reflect their behaviour. With all of that and despite advancement of more than 30 years of global sustainabil-ity diplomacy and apparent good will, it is intriguing that society continually breaks annual records of pollution, greenhouse-gas emissions and decline of biodiversity. Dialogues between governments and within them their sectorial policies, corporations and social organisations must be intensified to establish binding global agreements resulting in factually effective globally visible actions rather than publicity of lip services. This embraces the question, as to whether capitalism is able to fully and naturally occupy the economy when it ‘produces wealth that is shared by a few and at the expense of nature’. With the given constraints of the planet’s resources, economic growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. Degrowth arises as an alternative. With this critique, Fabio ‘walks the talk’ of a diversity of movements including traditional worldviews of indigenous populations of people.From here an impressive move is made because the author realises that without affective attachment to the inner dimensions of the different levels of human’s emotions, sustainability transition cannot be tackled. Enchantment and sacredness come to awareness, and thein Renaissance, the deepening of the fracture between humanity and nature was by no means an abrupt process. Indeed, nearly 1500 years earlier, Roman philosopher Cicero (106–43B.C.)– now hailed as the godfather of Humanism– forwarded the notion of humanitas, influencing Dante, Boccaccio (Chap. 3) and ulti-mately Renaissance’s Humanism (Grudin and Grudin 2012). Human’s increasing capacity to understand nature through science and literacy (diffusion of knowledge and information with the advent of the press gave prominence to that; Russell 1959/2017) now seemed a superpower. In this respect, there are two illustrative cases. First, for Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), knowl-edge was important to build a commonwealth or Civitas (‘artificial human’) and his model science was mechanical physics. His view was in marked contrast with that of Aristotle, for whom knowl-edge served to attain virtue and a good life, and had biology as model science (Chap. 3). Hobbes’s view had a major impact on modern ecological thought and influence, for instance, Garrett Hardin’s (1915–2003) neomalthusian ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ whose assumption is that humans are competitive by nature and there-fore capitalism is a natural form of association and exchange, the commons is its ‘marketplace’ and the state should control population issues (Macauley 1996). In late Modernity, Karl Marx– who had in history the model science to generate knowledge with the purpose of overcoming alienation (Chap. 5) – criticised Hobbes for 4 Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans29reducing the human spirit to a purely rational being in a society to be understood in strictly mechanical terms (van Ree 2020)The second case is the often-quoted contro-versy between Descartes and geometrist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). Although a Cartesian, Pascal had differences with some of Descartes’ thinking. While for Descartes science would allow us to understand everything, Pascal thought that things belonging to the realm of the sacred could not be explained scientifically. In other words, faith could not be reduced to reason (Pascal 1670/2005, Collette 2014, Marques 2016). This debate, at the dawn of the age of Enlightenment, somehow anticipates a long- lasting quarrel taking place during later Modernity. Pascal’s claim finds echo, for instance, in the thought of Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), philosopher of religion of the twentieth century, who posited that– while attempting to understand and control everything – moderns desacralised nature, turning it into commodity (Eliade 1957/2019, Chap. 5). It is also in har-mony with postmodern thinker Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) who criticises the myth of scientific objective knowledge (reason) promot-ing progress and emancipation while violent wars, ecological mayhem and social inequalities prevail (Lyotard 1979/2021). Simultaneously, Pascal’s humanism is also very evident, when he argues that even if the Universe crushed the humankind, humans would be more noble than the Universe, because they know the Universe can do it, while the Universe knows nothing (Pascal 1670/2005).Interestingly, therefore, some of the main thinkers of pre-Modernity could not easily fit into one pigeonhole or another, which is perhaps another evidence of the transition phase that Renaissance represented from the Middle Ages into late Modernity. For instance, Bacon and Newton were alchemists as much as they were scientists and religious persons (Bauer 2019). Pascal was religious, scientist and philosopher. Descartes was perhaps the most outstanding example of this mixture: a religious man, who is hailed by some as the ‘Father of Modern Philosophy’ and by others as the ‘Founder of Modern Science’ (Descartes 1641/2022, Goldman 2021, Lorenzini 2021). Perhaps, then, it is not so surprising that the interpretation of nature by Renaissance scientists, such as Bacon (Serjeantson 2014), was very much aligned with their interpretation of the Bible (Gaukroger 2006). Spinoza (1632–1677), however, is another interesting case since, for him, a religious Jewish person, God and Nature were two names for the same reality (Ruse 2013), which was somewhat similar to the early Augustinian view (Meirinho and Pulido 2011, Chap. 3). Bauer (2019) has claimed that this unprecedented liaison between science and religion– and also state power– has been ‘forged’ by the European conquest of the Americas: for him, the secrets of the nature in the New World were transformed into secrets of state. And science was aligned with this project. Bauer cites Francis Bacon, who said in 1603 that navigation and commerce would meet with the advancement of knowledge in what he called ‘the Autumn of the world’. European arrival in the Americas was a significant milestone for nature to become commodity in the modern imaginary and practice.4.3 The Age ofDiscoveries forSome, andInvasions forOthersAs Stefan Zweig (1942/2019) remarked, in the decade from 1492 to 1502 there were more discov-eries made by the Europeans than during the entire precedent millennium. New lands, new nature and new people represented a profound change in understanding the world and, with it, opportunities and risks emerged. Many among the great naviga-tors wrote letters to their sponsors in the European courts hailing the material richness they saw in the Americas: timber, gold and metals. For instance, Columbus said that whoever has gold is entitled to bring souls to paradise (Bauer 2019). Portuguese navigator Pero Vaz de Caminha, the writer of the fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral that reached Brazil in 1500, wrote to the Portuguese King Dom Manoel that, in those lands, whatever is planted will grow (Scarano 2018). Although both 4.3 The Age of Discoveries for Some, and Invasions for Others30Columbus and Vaz de Caminha also saw in the Americas, respectively, the ‘Garden of Eden’ and ‘paradise’, the historical option was that of domi-nation and usurpation, slavery and the massacre of many indigenous peoples during the first hundred years of occupation and thereof and, later in Modernity, intense ecosystem degradation and deforestation. Interestingly, there is great literature concerned with the heavenly paradise in both late mediaeval times and a century after the discover-ies. Respective examples are Dante Alighieri’s (1265–1321) ‘Divine Comedy’ (1304–1321/2017) and John Milton’s (1608–1674) ‘Paradise Lost’ (1667/2017). Evans (1996) sees in the latter a met-aphor for the ambivalences perceived in Britain regarding America’s colonisation.The letter entitled Mundus Novus (New World; Vespucci 1503/2013), written by Florentine navi-gator Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) to his Portuguese sponsors is one important milestone in modern history (Fig.4.1). Zweig (1942/2019) attempted to clarify some of the controversies and mysteries about Vespucci who, in his opin-ion, was a good writer. He also argues that the letter, supposedly written in the south-eastern coast of Brazil, was at least partly responsible for lending both name (America) and nickname (New World) to the continent newly found by the Europeans. Vespucci says in the letter that if there is anything like a paradise on Earth, it should not be too far from that place. As he describes it, this Earthly paradise is the sum of the natural beauty of the coastal Atlantic rainforest with the main traits of the local inhabitants, the Tupinambá indigenous people. To him, they all seemed friendly and calm, did not have personal belong-ings (all things were shared) and each one was their own commander since they had no King or chief. The letter was probably a major influence for Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, published in 1516, 13 years after the letter (Logan and Adams 2009). One fictional character of the book had recently returned from travels in the New World, escortingVespucci himself! While ‘Utopia’ – also influ-enced by Plato’s ‘Republic’ (Russell 1957/2019)– is somewhat ambiguous regarding the possibilities of planning a fair society, about the inherently good traits of human beings or even as to the principle of living in harmony with nature, the book is a social critique, especially to inequality and to treatment given to the poor (Claeys 2013).Furthermore, ‘Mundus Novus’ seems to dis-creetly suggest that the Europeans could perhaps learn something from local indigenous peoples. One hundred years later, natural philosopher Robert Boyle (1627–1691) shared a similar impression and suggested that medical doctors should learn from American indigenous peoples (and other non-scientific knowledge holders such as midwives and older women) about the powers of natural medicines and how to use them (Gaukroger 2006). Likewise, the German natural-ist Maria Sybilla Merian (1647–1717)– one of the few women performing this kind activity at the time– also learnt from African slaves about the healing powers of plants (Schiebinger 2004). However, despite these and some other isolated voices, the fact is that Modernity did not learn enough from America and its native or enslaved inhabitants from elsewhere in the Global South. Only in 2002, the United Nations recognised the need to foster a dialogue between scientific knowl-edge and indigenous and local knowledges, which was followed by specific initiatives in 2011 and 2017 (Thaman etal. 2013, Unesco 2017).It might seem even more paradoxical that while modern science began to flourish and Europeans were entering the Americas, the Inquisition was still going on. It did not only hunt witches (Chap. 3), but it also persecuted and exe-cuted scientists like the Neapolitan Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) for heresy, since his ideas challenged the Scholasticism that dominated the universities. Bruno expanded Copernicus’ heliocentric view to speculate about the existence of an infinite number of celestial worlds, which was viewed as heretical pantheism (Karolides etal. 2011). Schiebinger (2004) argues that this culturally induced ignorance is not merely absence of knowledge but the outcome of cul-tural and political struggle. She refers to Robert N. Proctor’s (2008) ‘agnotology’, the study of culturallyor politically induced ignorances, be it by neglect, myopia, secrecy, destruction, sup-pression or other forms of selectivity. Agnotology, as we saw in Chap. 1, is one of the ways by which 4 Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans31Fig. 4.1 Amerigo Vespucci discovering the Southern Cross with an Astrolabe, from Nova Reperta, pub. 1600 (engrav-ing), by Jan van der Straet. The image is of public domain and has been accessed on August 21st, 2023, at https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2015/03/06/senado-homenageia-os-560-anos-de-americo-vespuciowe will approach the sustainability challenge in Parts II and III of this book. As modern society marches into the deeper recesses of the Anthropocene– despite all science and technol-ogy there is – the question seems to be more about ‘what do we not know’ and ‘why not’ than ‘what and how do we know’. Some of what is forgotten or repressed is rescued, as in the case of Bruno, but so much is lost especially due to the extermination or silencing of a variety of non-hegemonic ways of being and ways of knowing (see Croissant 2014 for epistemological proper-ties of agnotology).4.4 Empiricism andLiberalismBritish philosopher and empiricist John Locke (1632–1704) is one important milestone in Renaissance political and philosophical thinking. His empiricism, unlike the then-prevailing ratio-nalism of Spinoza and Leibniz, did not assume that perfect knowledge was achievable and emphasised the importance of the sensorial expe-rience. Liberalism (each person can relate to God in their fashion) and tolerance were also part of Locke’s agenda. However, he thought it would be reasonable to allow people their freedom provided they had equal knowledge of the law they were under– but he thought that the dispar-ity among human beings, in regard to the capac-ity to reason, was too great (West 2012). The state of nature, for Locke, comprised peace, good will, cooperation and protection, which for Bloch (1959/1995) is comparable to More’s ‘Utopia’. However, Locke trusted that nature belongs to humankind in common and, for some, acknowl-edged only nature’s utilitarian value to humans (Benton 2007; but see West 2012). This line of thought is aligned with the type of use Europeans at that time were giving to America’s nature. His notion of freedom (relative to supposedly ‘differ-ent capacities of reason’; West 2012) also seemed 4.4 Empiricism and Liberalismhttps://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2015/03/06/senado-homenageia-os-560-anos-de-americo-vespuciohttps://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2015/03/06/senado-homenageia-os-560-anos-de-americo-vespuciohttps://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2015/03/06/senado-homenageia-os-560-anos-de-americo-vespucio32sadly aligned with slavery and indigenous geno-cide in the Americas.On a more positive note, Locke was simulta-neously influential to Kant’s critical philosophy (Russell 1959/2017), Edmund Husserl’s phe-nomenology (Murphy 1996)– important to my argument in this book (more to be seen in Chap.5)– and to the French Revolution. Locke divided ideas into being of two kinds: sensorial ideas (that originate from our observations of the external world) and reflective ideas that emerge when the mind observes itself (Russell 1959/2017). In that sense, his dialectic was very different from the Scholastic one that dominated Renaissance (Duschinsky 2012).4.5 Final Remarks: Contradictions andDisputesThe two centuries of pre-modern Renaissance was a period of dispute between enlightenment and violence, and between enchantment and greed. Knowledge of nature and of the world had unprecedented advances, but in parallel the period set the stage for increased domination, genocides, slavery and injustices. Witch-hunting, for instance, commonly associated with the Middle Ages, intensified in the late 1400s and continued all the way to 1650, well into pre- Modernity (Chap. 3). Scientists, like Giordano Bruno, were also burnt for being accused of her-esy. The abyss that Europeans created between themselves and those with different worldviews, as well as with the non-human elements of nature, grew larger in those days and set the tone for what would take place in late Modernity. The fracture between humans – namely modern Europeans vs. native Americans and African slaves – was also evidenced by the culturally induced ignorance of Europeans who learnt very little from fellow southerners. Five-hundred years after Vespucci described what seemed like a utopian vision of peace and love– inspired by the lifestyle of the Brazilian Tupinambá people– the aspiration would not only be unfulfilled but would instead turn into the dystopic Anthropocene. However, Vespucci’s utopia somehow persists, now under the nickname ‘sus-tainability’, which is also in dispute, as we will see in Part II of this book.ReferencesAlighieri D (1304–1321/2017) A Divina Comédia. Editora 34, São PauloBauer R (2019) The alchemy of conquest: science, reli-gion and the secrets of the New World. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, LondonBenton T (2007) Humans and nature: from Locke and Rousseau to Darwin and Wallace. 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Labrador, São PauloReferenceshttps://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.1996.11007149https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.1996.11007149https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64865-7_2https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64865-7_2https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2020.1773069https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2020.1773069https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052511000392https://doi.org/10.1017/S026505251100039235© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 F. R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_55The Modern Divorce Between Nature andCulture5.1 IntroductionPlato said that the world’s objects emulate ideas or ideal templates (Ruse 2013). For Bruno Latour (2004) the modern notion of nature then is framed by the templates forwarded by Ancient Greek philosophy (Chap. 2), French Cartesianism (Chap. 4) and North American protected areas. Thus, he claims that Modernity is not only asso-ciated with the rise of Humanism, but also to the complementary notions of ‘non-humanity’ (other species, things, objects) and of a ‘crossed-out God, relegated to the sidelines’ (Latour 1991, p.13). While the borders that divided nature and culture, and science and religion, were still a bit blurred during Renaissance (Chap. 4), in late Modernity these fractures were clearer and inter-related. In parallel, however, reaction to this trend came from many sides in science, the arts, and policy.During the three centuries of late Modernity, science shifted from seeing nature as a collection of things to approaching it as an entity subjected to an ever-evolving process. However, this out-look was practiced upon separate parts, and only rarely upon the whole. Reductionism is a central practice of modern science since Descartes (Mittelstraß 2015) but, as Rees (2015, p. 135) describes it, ‘it is true in a sense (…) but it is seldom true in a useful sense’. Moreover– despite all the increasing sophistication of science and philosophy – domination, slavery (explicit and implicit) and nature degradation persisted. But this is by no means linear and straightforward. I fully agree with Russell (1959/2017) that, given so many lines of thought and the multiplicity of events, it is nearly impossible to approach Modernity either exhaustively or chronologi-cally. Neither is the goal of this chapter, nor of the book as a whole, to present a historical treatise of Western (and planetary) thought. This chapter (and the book) shows that some of the most beau-tiful thoughts from Antiquity or the Middle Ages persist in Modernity or, even, became more elab-orated. The fact that this has notbeen enough to promote a positive transition to circumvent the malaises of the Anthropocene does not mean that change is not yet to come. This is a key chapter to sustain the argument of the book that deep transi-tion into sustainability– in the broader sense of planetary well-being – will come through dia-logue: between those that have been mostly the topic of the book so far– the western Europeans– and those that during Modernity remained oppressed by them: non-Modern humans and non-humans.5.2 Naturphilosophie: IandNot-IThe eighteenth century saw the scientific attempts to classify everything living and non-living with Linnaeus’ ‘Systema Naturae’ (1735) and Diderot and D’Alembert’s ‘Encyclopédie’ (1751–1772). http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_5&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_536In the latter half, that century saw both the Industrial Revolution (1760–1820) and the French Revolution (1789–1799) and the associa-tion of science and technology with the emerging power that dethroned religion and monarchies (Russell 1959/2017). In philosophy, however, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is an interesting example of humanist philosophy and natural phi-losophy taking parallel lines. On the one hand, he developed in his practical philosophy the Categorical Imperatives, which were literally humanist ‘commandments’ or duties to serve as ethical references in the new wave of liberty typi-cal of that century (Lüttge and Scarano 2019). On the other hand, he saw nature largely in a mecha-nistic fashion, although he – contrary to Aristotle– thought Biology would be unable to explain most aspects related to life functioning (Ruse 2013). Two other important voices of this century regarding nature were Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Rousseau (1751/2018) held a strong critique against science, culture and the civilised (modern) human. For him, science is laden with vile interests, culture evokes antinatural needs and modern humans are corrupt. He sees virtue and nobility only in the beau sauvage (Russell 1959/2017). Schelling, influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), and opposed to the reductionist trend of those times, developed a holistic dialectic of the complementarity of the ‘I’ and the ‘not-I’ that is extensive to the inter-dependence of consciousness and intuition, activity and passivity, reason and emotion, self and the other and, ultimately, humans and nature (Schelling 1797/1995). Schelling’s perspective is one of the guiding threads of this book, since it represents a development of Platonic dialec-tic, as we saw in Chap. 1: a therapy to the soul that leads to knowledge, overcoming pathologi-cal ignorance (Stephens 1993). The result of his approach is called the Philosophy of Nature or, as Schelling would put it, a philosophy of the ‘Absolute’. To Schelling, a philosophy of nature is generative, i.e. it is a process through which nature produces itself and emerges (Grant 2006). In his words (Schelling 1797/1995, p.10–11):As soon as man sets himself in opposition to the external world (…) he separates from now on what Nature had always united, separates the object from the intuition, the concept from the image, finally (…) himself from himself. (…) Between him and the world, therefore, no rift must be estab-lished, contact and reciprocal actions must be pos-sible between the two, for only so does man become man.‘Established rifts’ are precisely the fractures between humans and all that surrounds them, human alienation, as Hannah Arendt puts it (Macauley 1996; Chap. 2). Unlike Schelling’s approach, modern dialectic was often as reduc-tionist as the science of the period. Perhaps as an expected consequence of industrialism rising, the nineteenth century took a utilitarian detour. Malthus (1766–1834) and his concerns about population growth at the turn of the century influ-enced both Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, and Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) economic and political theory later to be known as Marxism (Russell 1959/2017). Although pertaining to distinct fields of inquiry, Darwin, Marx– and also another illus-trious contemporary, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) – followed the dialectic logic of Hegel (1770–1831), Fichte and Schelling: thesis, anti- thesis and resulting synthesis (Althusser and Montag 1991, Richards and Ruse 2016). However, this was done largely within the bound-aries of their specific fields of interest, although they have arguably mutually influenced each other and, of course, a legion of followers (Clark etal. 2007).To the objectives of this book, the comple-mentarity of these thinkers is of particular inter-est in regard of the angle from which each of them approached nature. It was not only Darwin who was willing to unveil multispecies nature’s secrets, but this was also the case of Freud search-ing for the secrets of the human individual nature (especially the unconscious) and of Marx’s attempts to reveal the social secrets of nature (particularly of capitalism). Nature of the self (Freud), nature of the social (Marx) and nature of the environment (Darwin) – reductionism? Despite their dialectic approach to search for a synthesis of the I and the not-I– as Fichte and 5 The Modern Divorce Between Nature andCulture37Schelling would call it– none of them was suffi-cient to address the ‘I’ of the whole, or the ‘Absolute’. Therefore, Darwin, Marx and Freud did not remain free of criticism. Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), in his provocative ‘Eros and Civilisation’ (Marcuse 1955/1975), argued that human impulses for control and destruction of nature result from the repression of the instinct. While Freud thought that repression of the instinct was intrinsic to civilised life, Marcuse distinguished between ‘basic repression’ (essen-tial for social cooperation) and ‘excessive repres-sion’ (imposed by the order of social domination by a given elite). For Marcuse, liberation of the Eros is essential for the reconciliation between humans and nature. His more implicit criticism to Marx comes when he argues that Prometheus is the cultural hero (one of Marx’s favourites) of laborious effort, productivity and progress through repression and, often, harm to nature. Instead, Marcuse claims that one should look for heroes in the opposite side, such as Dionysus and Orpheus, for their image of joy and happiness, for the peaceful attitude that contrasts with the labours of conquest and the ‘liberation of time that unites humans with god, and humans with nature’ (Marcuse 1955/1975, p.147). A relevant critique of Darwin comes from another infamous contemporary: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). He argued that the evolutionary theory searched for rules and patterns where they are not sup-posed to exist (Pence 2011) – a critique some-what similar to what Pascal thought of Descartes’ project of understanding all (Chap. 4).5.3 Phenomenology: Intuition andConsciousnessAlthough there is no Schelling school or no obvi-ous Schelling disciples, his Naturphilosophie has admittedly, among others, influenced existential-ism, idealism, Marxism and phenomenology (Norman and Welchman 2004). Edmund Husserl emphasised the role of subjectivity on the rela-tionship self– idea– thing (Husserl 1921/1988) and stands out as the pioneer of transcendental phenomenology (Table 5.1). His follower Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) – one of the key names associated with that tradition – defined phenomenology as a transcendental phi-losophy that attempts to describe experience based on a world that is present, unalienated. Thus, it pays less attention to causal explanations derived from psychological, sociological, histori-cal or scientific rationalities (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2018), while valuing intuition.Intuition is the kind of mental activity directly in tune with the world that surrounds the being– it is the most elevated form of instinct (Russell 1959/2017). In this respect, French philosopher Henri Bergson– as with his contemporary Husserl– was respon-sible for the philosophical turn in the early twentieth century to time, embodiment and intu-ition (Kelly 2010). The very discussion as to whether Bergson is a better fit to the phenomeno-logical or the existentialist tradition, or even a postmodern pioneer (Riley 2002, Kelly 2010, Bianco 2011), is evidence that he is one of the most influential thinkers of the end of the nine-teenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.Two concepts were dear to Bergson and are also to this book: intuition and duration. Intuition, as opposed to intellect, is practical and emerges from experience. The time upon which intuition operates is not the chronological, artificial time; it is the ‘real’ time, which Bergson calls ‘dura-tion’. Duration of the time of life, composed of both qualitatively different instants and unique moments. These moments and instants interpen-etrate one another and connect to form ‘dura-tions’ (Poli 2017). Consciousness keeps everything and, with the help of memory, con-nects past and present to intuitively anticipate futures. For Bergson (1901–1913/2009), the present is a purely theoretical, permeable mem-brane, and that consciousness has no present and navigates between past and future. Consciousness and spirit for the French philosopher are nearly synonyms, which is paradoxical from a modern perspective that often associates consciousness with rationality and the spirit with irrational. Finally, he trusted that for the incompleteness and elusiveness of intuition to become perennial, it requires entering a mode of continuous flow 5.3 Phenomenology: Intuition andConsciousness38Table 5.1 The main lines of philosophical investigation related to nature and applicable to sustainability issues. They all have modern and postmodern componentsCentury Lines Main characteristics and namesNineteenth Naturphilosophie, the philosophy of naturePhilosophy of nature is a generative process through which nature emerges from the relationship between human and non-human, being and non-being. It is a philosophy of the ‘Absolute’. Schelling (1775–1854) is the key name on this front.Nineteenth/todayPhenomenology Phenomenology is a transcendental philosophy that values experience, intuition and the senses with more or less balance with the logical rationality, depending on the author. Some of the key names are Husserl (1859–1938), Bergson (1859–1941) and Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961)Nineteenth/todayEnvironmentalism and radical ecologyEnvironmentalist movement moves between a romantic, nearly anti- human perspective, and a more socially engaged perspective. From this tension, arguably, sustainability emerges as a value. Some of a long list of important names include Rousseau (1712–1778), Fourier (1772–1837), Thoreau (1817–1862), Emerson (1803–1882), Muir (1838–1914), Heidegger (1889–1976) and Arne Naess (1912–2009)Nineteenth/todayNaturalists and scientistsWhile naturalists such as Humboldt (1769–1859) and Martius (1794–1868) often brought a more comprehensively view of nature as whole, science became increasingly reductionist, even in disciplines expected to address the whole, such as Biology. Vernadsky (1863–1945) was an important exception. In science, after Darwin, ecology, neodarwinism and– with less impact– the Gaia theory, converged with non-biological fields to give rise to sustainability sciencebetween the spirit and nature. If we reduce the ‘indivisible continuity’, as Bergson called it, to subsystems, these subdivisions are not parts of the whole, ‘they are only partial views of the whole’ (Bergson 1907/2019, p.34). Again, it is the indivisible wholeness, which is reminiscent of the original meaning of ‘nature’ (Chap. 1), of the pre-Socratic philosophy (Chap. 2), of Augustine (Chap. 3), of Spinoza (Chap. 4) and of Schelling (above).To this list, we can add Merleau-Ponty, who was the first phenomenologist to argue that transcendence was not something only intellectual but, instead, a capacity of the physiological body. Subjectivity and aware-ness– and I add anticipation– are inherent to our sensorial, corporeal relations with the world around us (Abram 1996). Biosphere, for him, was the ‘flesh’ of the planet, an intri-cate tissue of which humans were one humble part (Merleau-Ponty 1964/2018). This, in turn, echoes the famous statement of Chief Seattle in 1855 (1786–1866): ‘man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it’ (see Weiss 1990). The Chief– and most if not all Amerindians– is then another addition to the fairly long list of thinkers who perceive nature as a wholeness, of which humans are part.5.4 Environmentalists andRadical EcologistsWhile Husserl and Bergson applied phenome-nology as an investigation of the consciousness, and Merleau-Ponty as the primacy of perception (Abram 1996), Martin Heidegger explored it as an approach to being (Crowell 2013). As we have seen in Chaps. 1 and 2, for Heidegger the development of Western metaphysics was a degenerative process of ‘forgetting of being’ and such forgetfulness has had negative impli-cations for the very essence of being human (Heidegger 1927). He also condemned the destruction of nature by modern economies that treated humans and non-humans as commodity (Zimmerman 1996). For him, humans are responsible for taking care of themselves but also of non-human nature– a vision that influ-enced some of his followers such as Arendt and Jonas, as we will see in upcoming chapters. 5 The Modern Divorce Between Nature andCulture39While Heidegger does not easily fit in the pid-geon-holes of phenomenologist or environmen-talist, some of his thought influences radical ecology, environmentalism and sustainability thinking (Zimmerman 1996).Of course, the history of environmentalism can be traced back to Rousseau and the European romantic movement in the eighteenth century, but it grew stronger in the centuries to come. McNeil (2012) provide a detailed account of environmen-tal history and of the history of environmentalism across the planet and here I will not revisit that. It is relevant, however, to highlight that since its early days (and to a large extent until today), environmentalism mistrusts human capacity to deal with non-human nature in a harmonious fashion. In the United States, late nineteenth cen-tury, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir – with their romantic- transcendental conservation ethic (Groom etal. 2006)– highlighted that nature has uses other than economic gain in an often poetic and quasi- religious fashion. Emerson (1836/2009), for instance, said that natural his-tory helps us understand supernatural history. They raise the notion of ‘wilderness’ that became essential for the creation of protected areas such as national parks and ultimately led to the Wilderness Act of 1964, in the United States, that recognised the need to protect ‘communities of life’ in areas ‘untrammelled by man’ (see Johnson 2020). Protected areas as a tool for conservation are now implemented across the planet (see Chap. 10), but the main premise behind this pol-icy instrument is that humans and non-human elements of nature should be kept apart, for the sake of the other species. Later, in the twentieth century, environmentalism as a social movement has given birth to a number of international and national non- governmental organisations that remain very influential in governmental and pri-vate sector environmental practices. By the 1970’s, a lot of the environmentalism was ‘eco-centric’, nature- focused, which was being increasingly met with strong oppositionfrom social scientists for various reasons, including the impact of conservation on local peoples and cul-tures, and connections with the capitalist notion of progress and development (West and Brockington 2012).From this tension, critique appeared in the shape of radical environmentalism or radical ecology. Lines of thought and movements such as deep ecology, integral ecology, ecosocialism and ecofeminism emerged– all radically against the anthropocentric view of nature (Zimmerman 1996). But, arguably, radical ecology also emerged at the dawn of nineteenth century with Charles Fourier. Marcuse (1970/2022) and Roelofs (1996, 2018) describe Fourier’s utopian, anarchistic approach as influential of Marxism, feminism, the hippie movement and of ‘red-green theory’. His controversial proposal – since it challenged family, monogamy and nature as commodity– to radically re-create an ‘amorous world’ (Roelofs 2018) is reminiscent of Vespucci’s ‘love trinity’, as he saw in the Tupinambá Amerindians in Brazil: love of self, love of neighbour and love of nature (Chap. 4). Fourier also highly valued instinct and intuition, as the phenomenologists did (Roelofs 1996).Deep ecology has various approaches, but that of its founder, Arne Naess is about the interaction of ecology with spiritual, philosophical and reli-gious traditions that approach nature ecocentri-cally (Walsh etal. 2021), which some classify as a type of ecosophy (Levesque 2016, see also Chap. 6). For some, it fits under the broader umbrella of integral ecology that is concerned (Fig.5.1),largely, with achieving a future when humans and non-humans are integrated in peace-ful and sustainable relationships – for this pur-pose, a variety of approaches is welcome (Mickey etal. 2017). Sustainability advocacy and science, I have argued (Scarano 2019, Chap. 8), somehow emerges out of the dispute between the various types of ecologies that there are. We will see more about some of these movements, such as ecofeminism, in Chap. 10.5.5 Naturalists andScientistsThe concerns of philosophical thought and social movements during the nineteenth, and especially the twentieth century, regarding the need to 5.5 Naturalists andScientists40•Exterior (interobjective)•Collective•systems•Interior (intersubjective)•Collective•cultures•Exterior (objective)• Individual• behaviours•Interior (subjective)• Individual•experiencesSelf and consciousnessBrain and organismSocial systemand environmentCulture and worldviewFig. 5.1 Integral ecology: a framework that is applicable to self, social, cultural and environmental ecology in an integrated fashion. Both individual (objective and subjective) and collective (interobjective and intersubjective) perspectives are accounted for. (Adapted from Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman 2017)reconnect humans with nature, were very much related to the reports of travelling naturalists, especially in the Americas. Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, German naturalist who played a leading role in the description of Brazilian biodi-versity, believed that Brazilian history was closely linked to the crossing of the three races that formed nationality– the indigenous peoples, the Africans and the Caucasian (Martius 1845, Costa 2009). This view, which has always found much controversy, would be consolidated and deepened with the Brazilian anthropologist and sociologist Gilberto Freyre (1900–1987) (Vainfas 1999). In ‘Casa-grande e Senzala’ (1933)– in a period that marked one of the peaks of global rac-ism– he stated that the racial and cultural misce-genation that took place in Brazil would be of special value for civilisation. The importance of Freyre’s contribution has led recent scholars to point him as one of the first theorists of globalisa-tion (Gerstenberger 2013).Alexander Von Humboldt, another German naturalist, who extensively travelled across the northern Amazon, produced a treatise in five vol-umes called ‘Kosmos’ (1845–1862). He then described the Earth as an animated natural whole-ness and had an outlook also on complexity, as he saw life as a great chain of causes and effects, in which nothing could be considered in an isolated fashion (Wulf 2016). Andrea Wulf also tells us, not surprisingly therefore, that he cogitated call-ing the book ‘Gäa’, in reference to Greek Goddess. We will see more about the theory that also carries the name of Gaia in Chap. 6.On the scientific front, of course the cases of Darwin, Marx and Freud are outstanding but, as already discussed, each of them maintained a reductionist approach that confined their analyses always to less than the whole. For instance, James Lovelock (1919–2022) – with Lynn Margulis (1938–2011), one of the parents of Gaia theory (Chap. 6)– wondered what would have happened if Darwin considered the planetary organism as a whole rather than its individual biological mod-ules, as part of his evolutionary theory (Lovelock 2010). Interestingly, some 50 years before the Gaia theory, Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (1926/2019) came up with a broader definition for the concept of biosphere. For him, it covers from a few metres into the soil to the interface between the atmosphere and the strato-sphere. It is composed by living beings as well as by inert material, due to their interconnectivity. Life, in his view, is a geological force that makes the Earth unique among the known planets– an indivisible whole. The similarities with the Gaia theory were such that Lynn Margulis – previ-ously unaware of the work of the Russian scien-tist– co-wrote the preface to the first translation of his book ‘Biosphere’ into English (Vernadsky 1926/1998). Vernadsky and one of his fond admirers, Jesuit and philosopher Teilhard Chardin, will be further examined in Chap. 9, when we discuss technology.5 The Modern Divorce Between Nature andCulture41In Biology, the reductionist approach thrived, such as in the gene-centric perspective of neodar-winism, which in many ways silenced Gaia the-ory for a number of decades (Castell etal. 2019, Chap. 6). Ecology itself also followed a reduc-tionist perspective with all its subdivisions: genes, organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, etc. In this respect, Timothy Morton (2007, p.178) argued that ecological science ‘has transformed the environment into a gigantic library (…) a book of nature (…) without an index’. Finally, and towards the end of the twen-tieth century– faced with the irreversible state of planetary transformation due to humankind, now called Anthropocene – convergence of many disciplinary scientific modules led to the emergence of sustainability science (to be dis-cussed in Chap. 8).5.6 Final Remarks: Great Acceleration, Great ContradictionSteffen etal. (2015a) proposed that the beginning of the Anthropocene coincides with the ‘Great Acceleration’ post-1950s, a moment when many of the Earth’s indicators would have changed beyond the variation presented during the Holocene, due to human action. In another study, Steffen etal. (2015b) argued that, as a result of the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration, humankind has transgressed planetary boundar-ies, going beyond the ‘safe operating space’, especially when it concerns the integrity of bio-sphere and climate change. Even though the con-cept of planetary boundaries is not freed from critics (e.g. Montoya etal. 2017), science has no doubts about the human impact on Earth, its effects on climate and on the vulnerability of natural and human systems to such changes (IPCC 2014).Entering the Anthropocene, as the result of humankind’s divorce from nature, is one of the greatest contradictions of the journey of the Homo sapiens on Earth. The fast advancement of science, the sophisticated developments of humanistic philosophy and rapid industrialisa-tion were in tandem with nature degradation and increasing social inequalities and violence. Freedom– the key value behind many changes in Europe in the eighteenth century– was nei-ther translated by the modern Europeans in ending slavery and violent domination in the Global South nor in fairer labour relations in the Global North. 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Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_66Postmodern or Postnormal? Are WeFarther or Closer toNature?6.1 IntroductionWe live in times of ‘post-everything’: post-truth, post-humanism, postfeminism, postnormal, post-modern and even post-postmodern. Paul (2021) explains that post-concepts establish a ‘fence’ around a given part of reality and label it as some-thing past. He also argues that this is not an exclusively twenty-first century habit, it has been out there since the first half of the twentieth cen-tury. However, ‘post-’ language became increas-ingly more common with the translation of Jean-François Lyotard’s (1924–1998) La Condition Postmoderne (Lyotard 1979/2019). The common prefix may even suggest affinities or even kinship relations between post-terms (Paul 2022). They also, at first sight, suggest tran-sition into something that is unknown, or uncer-tainty in describing the present situation (Salazar 2021). In this chapter, I address two ‘post- adjectives’ – postmodern and postnormal – by examining their stand on human-nature relation-ship. Unlike the previous chapters, here I am not addressing an era per se, but a countermovement (postmodernism) and a transition phase (postnor-mal times), who bear a number of affinities and sometimes overlap, but also very significant dif-ferences (Table6.1).Despite the differences laid out in Table6.1, it is not only difficult to separate authors and themes into each of these pigeonholes, but it is often hard also to distinguish them from modern thinking. Let us take, for instance, the secular practice of nature conservation. At first (as of late nineteenth century, but still present today), the action of protecting wilderness areas from humans (see Chap. 5) might have been called postmodern, since it opposed the narrative of nature as commodity. However, later on, these areas also served purposes related to tourism, lei-sure and even provision of ecosystem services to ensure food, water, climate and energy security. Since in these terms one can argue that these pro-tected areas have been incorporated by modern capitalist practice, they would fit well the modern label. Finally, if these same areas were re- examined under the light of climate change, and practitioners decided to change the limits and the extension of the parks to better accommodate processes such as migration of animals and plants within a new geographic range, this would be a postnormal attitude. This has also been incorpo-rated to the language of science and examples of how postnormal science (see also Chap. 8) is being applied to biodiversity are already present in the Global South, in countries like Australia (Colloff etal. 2017) and South Africa (Buschke etal. 2019). Another example of such differences can be derived from postmodern and postnormal approaches to the human-nature relationship (Table 6.1). Schroeder (2007) has pointed out that, unlike the postmodern approach, one should not limit oneself to see in ‘part of nature’ or ‘apart from nature’ a dichotomous choice. This postnor-http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_6&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_646Table 6.1 Traits attributed to postmodernism and post-normal times (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993; Horrocks 2002; Dingler 2005; Sardar 2010, 2015; Mayo 2020)Postmodernism Postnormal timesWhat is A philosophy, artistic movement or political ideology, with a nihilistic approachA transition period into an unknown future, marked by chaos, contradictions and complexityGrand narrativesPurpose to demolish them and offers no practical alternativePays attention to them critically and has a theory of changeMeaning Absent Search forTools Irony, cynicism Critical observation and experiencePeriod Mostly, second half of the twentieth centuryPossibly coincides with the late 1980s, early 1990sNature A discourse of powerA complex system we must manage, accommodate and adjustScience A construct that makes reality at its own imagePlurality of knowledgemal conclusion he inferred from place-based observation that the real experience indicates a dialectical view of human-nature relationship, in which humans can simultaneously be part of and apart from nature.Interestingly, we also live in times of ‘eco- everything’ (Jacoby 2020). The use of the ‘eco’ prefix is still not as frequent as in the case of the ‘post’ prefix, but it is also out there: ecofemi-nism, ecophenomenology, ecomaterialism, eco-socialism, ecovillages and even eco-anxiety. This seems to suggest that very often ‘post’ is ‘eco’. It is as if we fenced everything past as ‘non-eco’ or even ‘anti-eco’. ‘Eco’ is both a postmodern and a postnormal attitude. Indeed, Gare (1995) has argued nearly three decades ago that the postmodern and the environmentalist discourses should more frequently engage in exchange and conversation. This chapter will also show that this is already happening to some extent, both in science and in philosophy, such as in the case of holistic scientific theories and ecosophy, a varietyof ecological philosophies, which are largely postmodern and postnormal.6.2 RationaleMy first assumption is that during at least the past 25 years we are in postnormal times. This is a complex, contradictory and chaotic time of tran-sition from one normal into a new normal (Sardar 2010, 2015), which is probably best translated by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1991, p.138) who argued that in postnormal times ‘facts are uncertain, val-ues in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent’ (see also Chap. 1). During these postnormal times, there are three coexisting or competing categories of worldviews: traditional, modern and postmodern (Hedlund-deWitt 2012). The tra-ditional worldview refers to cases in which sci-ence is not the only form of knowing, and religious or other local cultural manifestations are also equally or more relevant. The modern worldview (Chap. 5) subscribes to economic val-ues, and science is the only relevant way of knowing. For the postmodern worldview, science is not the only form of knowing, since it is open to individually flexible forms of spirituality. Objectively, according to Michel Foucault (1926–1984), worldviews are neither true nor false since they are subjected to relationships between knowledge and power (Foucault 1980). It is, however, precisely these kinds of relation-ships that make the modern worldview hege-monic, in the sense that it often silences or subjugates traditional worldviews, while being attacked by postmodern critique (Fig.6.1).My second assumption is that the desirable futures that might lie beyond postnormal times embrace multiple forms of ‘planetary well- being’, defined by Kortetmäki etal. (2021) as ‘a state where the integrity of Earth system and eco-system processes remains unimpaired to a degree that species and populations can persist to the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve wellbeing’. This definition makes no dis-tinctions between humans and non-humans. Sardar’s (2021) perspective has two imperatives: first, to avoid the real possibility of societal col-6 Postmodern or Postnormal? Are WeFarther or Closer toNature?47old normal modern hegemony unchallengedpostnormal modern hegemony challenged by traditional and postmodern worldviewsnew normal?Fig. 6.1 Postnormal times (PNT; darker colour) are the times between two normals (clearer). PNT are typically times of chaos, complexity and contradictions. In current postnormal times, the modern worldview remains hege-monic, but it is now challenged by traditional and post-modern worldviews. The new normal to emerge after that will depend on mutual dialogues and understanding between different worldviewslapse, and second, a collective and collaborative vision and practice towards ‘viable, thriving futures of humanity on an ecologically healthy Earth’. This ‘transnormal’ state, as Sardar calls itand expects to be the future ‘new normal’– is more anthropocentric than the notion of plane-tary well-being, since it still keeps humanity and the rest of the Earth in separate boxes.My third and final assumption is that this state of planetary well-being can be expressed by the word ‘sustainability’, which– as with the word ‘nature’ (Part I of this book)– is currently held hostage by the modern worldview and, therefore, has a ‘price tag’ on it (see Chaps. 1, 5 and upcom-ing Part II). Sustainability in the broad sense of planetary well-being is not the answer to a ‘where’ question, but to a ‘what’ question. It is not one place of arrival, but a state that will by no means be homogenous, since it will allow for the coexistence and collaboration of different worldviews.Next, I introduce two interrelated lines of thought that have modern origins, a postmodern attitude, and, I find, are open invitations for post-normal dialogues: Gaia theory and ecosophy. Such conversations are in the scope of the ‘how’ question: how will society allow for this new (utopic, if you wish) state of sustainability (in the sense of planetary well-being) to emerge? I address these dialogues in more detail, especially in Parts III and IV of the book, after we examine in Part II the current state of sustainability as value and practice.6.3 Gaia: FromAncient Greece toPostmodern Theory toPostnormal MetaphorThe Gaia theory– named after the Greek Goddess of the Earth, mother of all life – forwards the notion of dynamic stability of life in time (Lovelock and Margulis 1974). It suggests that on Earth living and non-living entities interact and evolve through a mechanism of self- regulation that maintains life that, hence, is auto-poietic, i.e. it is capable to reproduce the components of which it is composed (Maturana and Varela 1984). Poli (2017) adds that for auto-poietic systems the surrounding environment is not ‘other’, but part of the system. The relation-ship between system and environment is reflex-ive, since they are one, whole. Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky (1926/1989), still little known in the West, argued that life is an ‘indivis-ible and indissoluble whole’ and expanded the biosphere concept. This sphere of life is rather thin, extending from a few metres into the geo-sphere to several metres up towards the top of the atmosphere, i.e. the troposphere. Furthermore, biosphere for him was not only a sphere of life but also actually the result of the interaction of life with non-life, with inert mineral materials. Life is, thus, the geological force that turns the Earth different from other known planets. From the points of view of Gaia theory, autopoietic theory and the expanded biosphere concept, the planet functions as one living supraorganism 6.3 Gaia: FromAncient Greece toPostmodern Theory toPostnormal Metaphor48with humans as part of its large web of life. This brings us back to the notion of wholeness, as dis-cussed in Chap. 5 to be reminiscent of the origi-nal meanings of ‘nature’ (Chap. 1), of the pre-Socratic philosophy (Chap. 2), of Augustine (Chap. 3), of Spinoza (Chap. 4), of Schelling and his Naturphilosophie, of the phenomenology of Bergson and Merleau-Ponty, as well as of Amerindian leader Chief Seattle– to name but a few (Chap. 5).Vernadsky also argued that the biosphere had two emerging properties: the technosphere and the noosphere. The technosphere is the set of technical and technological objects that humans built and installed on the planet. This sphere of artificial, constructed matter, might soon exceed the mass of all living things on the planet (Elhacham etal. 2020). The noosphere expressed the concern of the Russian scientist with the impact of human consciousness on Earth: it is the sphere of knowledge whereby human mind, through science and engineering, would become the main driving force for global environmental change (Vernadsky 1938/1997). He thus seemed to be anticipating the Anthropocene (Guillaume 2014).French philosopher and Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) met Vernadsky and devel-oped his own notion about the noosphere. For him, it was a collective consciousness, which would emerge from the interaction of human minds. He thought that as human networks grew with transport and telecommunications (the tech-nosphere), the noosphere would expand its inte-gration, consciousness and unification, culminating at the Omega Point, a hyperpersonal organisation of humanity. Evolution for him was ascension towards the collective consciousness and the ‘Cosmic Christ’ would be the Universe’s organising principle (Chardin 1955/2008). Chardin also saw a role for technology in this process. He believed radio and television antici-pated telepathic communication (Chardin 1946/2007) – one can only wonder how more optimistic he would have become had he seen the Internet.Vernadsky, Chardin, Lovelock and Margulis, Maturana and Varela – they all had a holisticvision of life. While Chardin was more tradi-tional (according to the worldview classification of Hedlund-deWitt 2012), his view had modern technological components. While ahead of his time, Vernadsky’s view was very modern, with a postnormal outlook: for instance, for him, Ecology should be dealt with at planetary scale, as Earth System Science (see also Chap. 8) does nowadays (Guillaume 2014). Gaia and autopoie-sis theorists were definitely postnormal, and pos-sibly postmodern as well. Latour transformed Gaia theory in a metaphor to address politically how to deal with the global planetary crises: his ‘Gaia politics’ (Latour 2018) is probably both postmodern and postnormal.6.4 Ecosophy: Regenerating GaiaEcosophy or ecological philosophy is a philo-sophical framework and lifestyle grounded on ecologically based everyday action and political engagement (Levesque 2016). Under the ecoso-phy umbrella, Levesque places both Arne Næss, the founder of deep ecology (Chap. 5) and Felix Guattari (1930–1992). Interestingly, Vernadsky was apparently an influence on both: on Næss’s expectation of a positive interaction between humans and their surroundings (Levesque 2016), and on Guattari’s concept of mechanosphere that in many ways resembles the technosphere, or better, the bio-technosphere (Saldanha and Stark 2016). In the case of Guattari, furthermore, Gregory Bateson’s (1904–1980) notion of ecolo-gies of the mind, of the social and of the planet (Bateson 1972/1987) was most influential to his three ‘ecologies’: environmental, social and indi-vidual (Guattari 1989/2000). Both initiatives of Næss and Guattari emerged to counter the nearly absent popular awareness over environmental issues. Guattari (1989/2000), for instance, is explicit about the praxis of three ecologies pos-sibly leading to reframing goals of emancipatory struggles, such as those of feminism, antiracism and environmentalism itself.Later, Guattari – along with his long-time writing partner Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) – 6 Postmodern or Postnormal? Are WeFarther or Closer toNature?49announced a ‘geophilosophy’, still within the same paradigm of ecosophy, which was about a ‘return’ to Earth, return to nature (Deleuze and Guattari 1991/1994). Maffesoli’s (2017/2021) ‘geosociology’ is equivalent to that and demands an ‘ecosophical sensibility’ to feel this connec-tion. Saldanha and Stark’s (2016) interpretation of Deleuze and Guattari’s ecosophy is that the modern relationship between humans and non- humans hinders this return to nature for being materialist, geographical and having strong rela-tionships with capitalism, family, racism and the state. Therefore, for them, life is collective and political. Næss’s deep ecology involves the inter-action of ecology with spiritual, philosophical and religious dimensions, and its approach is ecocentric (Walsh et al. 2021, Chap. 5). For instance, once he stated, ‘humans and only humans have no right to interfere with natural processes’ (Næss 1984). One may place close to deep ecology, the quasi-religious ecophenome-nology of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (1923–2014), whose philosophical approach is to shift human intentionality towards the Earth and the Cosmos from an instrumental one to a loving one (Totaro 2018).If we agree that the three ecologies principle is relevant, we assume that connection with self, with social and with the environment is a key step in the transition for sustainable futures, in a plan-etary well-being state. If we agree with Hannah Arendt’s argument that modern humans alienated themselves from all that surrounds them (other humans and non-human elements of nature; Macauley 1996, Chaps. 2 and 5), this means that individual and communitarian connections with self, social and the environment are ruptured. Thus, it would appear that a key individual and collective attitude in postnormal times is to regenerate the missing links we had with our-selves, other people and the non-human world around us (Scarano 2019). As we have seen in Chap. 1, ‘regeneration’ emerges as a competing metaphor for ‘sustainability’ (Gibbons 2020; Poelina et al. 2022). Regeneration is a process that applies to repairing of systems, relationships and rights, and is therefore inclusive of other worldviews, as opposed to the stricter (modern, capitalistic) notion of sustainable development (Scarano 2019). Planetary well-being (another competing metaphor for sustainability) is the out-come, which is inclusive of all humans and non- humans, as we saw in the second premise established in the rationale of this chapter.As I have argued in previous chapters, this reconnection will require regenerative conversa-tional, dialogical and dialectic processes, to hopefully finally reach the stage described by Amerigo Vespucci when he saw the lifestyle of Tupinambá Amerindians in Brazil: love of self, love of neighbour and love of nature (Chap. 4). Vespucci’s vision, expressed 500years earlier, is incredibly aligned with that of three ecologies (and it was definitely postmodern and postnormal already in the 1500s).6.5 Final Remarks: Towards SustainabilityOn board of postnormal times, there are distinct worldviews that can be divided into very broad pigeonholes as traditional, modern and postmod-ern, while the modern one is the hegemonic. It is not always easy to discern them, but it increas-ingly appears that attitudes that reconcile humans with nature are not only desirable but necessary. An eventual ‘return to nature’, ‘return home’, seems to be an aspiration for the twenty-first cen-tury by an ever-growing number of different human voices. This intention evokes feelings and perceptions of wholeness, so present in some of the thoughts and practices we have seen in the previous chapters that spanned some 2500years.It is not by chance that this chapter, while end-ing Part I (Nature Across Times), converges a wealth of ideas and experiences into a set of prin-ciples that somehow seem to always have been present in human society, although in some occa-sions they are more present than in others, in short, love, trust, respect and goodness. These principles – that by now seem to emerge or reemerge – regard human relationships with other humans, with non-human elements of nature, and with oneself. They are binding forces that keep us whole with one another, as Gaia, as 6.5 Final Remarks: Towards Sustainability50Earth. However, these principles remain repressed by the individualistic drive of the modern world, which is filled with grand narratives most people live by. On the one hand, postmodernism denies them. On the other hand, postnormal times instead demand attention to both the grand narra-tives and their critiques. This often-confusing exercise activates memory, which has a regenera-tive role. To build or rebuild a sense of whole-ness, I argue that conversations and dialogues are important stepping stones that might trigger the regeneration of lost memories and connections. Such dialogues must be inclusive of all diversity of human and non-human voices, as in the Gaia parliament imagined and proposed by Latour. They must build on the dialectic concepts and practices of Plato (Chap. 2) and Schelling (Chap. 5)– that are more about elevation of the soul and enhancement of knowledge than about unproductive conflicts. This chapter and Part I as a whole hint that humanity has still a long way to go to come back home to nature, but the reflec-tions so far might invite the reader to embark on Part II (Sustainability Emerges) with a broader set of expectations.A passage from a letter of 1950 by Albert Einstein, quoted by Mickey etal. (2017, p. xiv), seems adequate both to end Part I and to drive us to Part II:A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughtsspiritual dimension of sustain-ability is recognised to make service to transition, where important changes of mindset, beliefs and values are required. Compared to religion appearing 8000 years ago and much later academia in the thirteenth century and science in the sixteenth century, spirituality is very old having come to human’s con-sciousness together with its evolution.In the cultural domain, the sustainability relations of traditional, indige-nous and locally settled people are considered. These ancestral peoples’ worldviews remained much more connected to nature than those of modern people. With their attitudes and life-styles, especially in relation to land-use and resource-use, they have much to offer in terms of practical applications for sustainability, although their interferences by organising their life are also not free from challenging sustainability. So, there is the question what they expect from sustainability. What is its relevance for them? Conversely, their principles and spiritual beliefs also offer philosophical lessons relevant to sustainability. The dialogue with them needs to be intensified overcoming evident shortcomings in the formulation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The same reflections apply to the youth, although representing a much larger proportion of global human population. There is an enormous variation in behaviour between engagement and disengagement in sustainability. Youth’s activism and global sustainability movements, e.g. ‘Fridays for Future’, have intergenerational implications that require amplified dialogue.This leads to highlight the demand for education, with the formal educa-tion in all various types of schools and universities, but not only for the youth, where then institutions of informal education, such as museums, botanical gardens and– I may add– zoological gardens, come into action. The trans-formative perspective of education is promoted by sustainability information and dialogues at all the very numerous levels of sustainability. An indispens-able contribution to this is also made by the arts the various formats and media of which are an intimate part of culture, which turns sustainability Forewordxiaccessible as a theme by both providing information and triggering intense imagination. Art addresses the inner domain of sustainability and supports transformations to it. The author here also takes us along to his personal reception of some creations of art.With considering regeneration at the end, the book enters utopia. There is not much talk on the practical procedures of restoration, where stem species are involved, nursing rebuilt of a desirable environment (Lüttge etal. 2013). We should distinguish restoration from regeneration. Regeneration is self- repair of wholeness. It is emergence by the convergence of separate modules and anticipation of new sustainable states of planetary wellbeing and peace.With this, the author’s environmental metaphysics performs a deep ingres-sion into the philosophy of utopia. Utopia is transcending the world as we know it, a radical alterity. Utopia is a compass. Here Fabio also examines the shortcomings of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Utopia addresses ideals and notnecessarily action. Sustainability-utopia is a persistent mental-ity and orientation. Rationality of humans following the orientation has proven to be insufficient. Nevertheless, active hope remains, integrating all of the thinking in this seminal book for a ‘new Earth and new people’.Finally, it remains to be said that the book is comprehensive including all aspects of sustainability with its impact on all elements of our existence and thinking. None of them appear to have been overlooked: history– philoso-phy– religion and spirituality– art– science– technology– politics and gov-ernance– economy– education– ethics. This is an ontological whole. The extensive study of a broad literature, which the author has performed for his writing, leaves impressive lists of references after each chapter. We may won-der, if such an all comprising view better fosters global human dedication to sustainability than more precisely addressing distinct specific targets of sus-taining. Evidently, both is needed. As Fabio says, even the seventeen listed objectives of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a whole did not suc-ceed in moving the needle much from unsustainable to sustainable. Therefore, the volume should have an enormous impact providing substantial reading for an audience being committed to decision-making and preparing for action at one end and sitting back in relaxation with reflections and thinking about the functioning and fate of our planet at the other end of the arch spanning thought. UlrichLüttge ReferencesDupré J (2021) The metaphysics of biology. Cambridge elements: elements in the phi-losophy of biology series. 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Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_77Sustainability asaMoral Value Requires New Ethics7.1 IntroductionIndividual and societal values underpin ethics that, in turn, is the backbone of policy design and, ultimately, of transformations. Scaling from values to political action can take place within a given period of time, a given ‘normal’, or may be the very cause of shifting from a soon-to-be past normal into a future normal (Sardar 2015). This is by no means linear, and new policies may evoke ancient values in a cir-cular, or better, spiral fashion (Rupprecht etal. 2020; Virtanen etal. 2020; Poelina etal. 2022). As we have seen in Part I of this book, changes in values were strongly related to changes in time and space in the way humans related to other elements of nature. During nearly 2500years of history, in the hegemonic mod-ern world, nature shifted from something sacred to a commodity. It so happened irre-spective of non-moderns who did not share such values. Moreover, many of those who did not follow the hegemonic thought were silenced or even killed in the process (see Chaps. 1 and 4). Along with these changes, and as a result of them, the planet now finds itself in a state of acute, multiple crises. The serious-ness of this state is such that it is already appar-ent in the geological strata: it is called Anthropocene (Salas-Zapata and Ortiz-Muñoz 2019; Folke et al. 2021; Ruggerio 2021; see also Chaps. 1 and 5).Anthropocene is the present, human- dominated geological epoch, characterised by the impact of human activities on the Earth system that supplemented the Holocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Crutzen 2002). Despite some criticism (e.g. Malm and Hornborg 2014), the term is now of public use. Views on the beginning of the Anthropocene also vary. For some, it starts with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1784 (Crutzen 2002), for others during the post-1950 ‘Great Acceleration’ (Steffen etal. 2015a). Either way, Earth system indicators now show shifts beyond the range of variability of the Holocene, which are driven by human activities. These activities have transgressed planetary boundaries and driven humanity beyond a safe operating space, especially as regards climate change and biosphere integrity (Steffen et al. 2015b), which imposes risks (see also Chap. 5). Anthropocene risks have recently been defined as systemic risks that derive from human-driven processes, global socioecological connectivity, and display complex cross-scale integration that can trigger non-linear systemic change (Keys etal. 2019). It is irreversible, but to mitigate and counter such risks, transition to sustainability seems essential. Sustainability – which by the early seventies still was a marginal perspective and movement (Tulloch 2013)– became a value and stirred new approaches to ethics (Scarano 2019). It now stands as an antidote for the mal-aises of the Anthropocene.http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_7&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_756For such a transition, leverage points are nec-essary. Donella Meadows (1999) argued that there are different ‘depths’ of leverage points. The deepest addresses the root causes of unsus-tainability and are related to intentions, which are largely based on values and ethics. Shallower points are also relevant but produce only small changes to the system. Meadows’s 12 leverage points can be summarised into four categories, from shallow to deep: materials, processes, design and intent (Abson et al. 2017; Leventon etal. 2021). Materials, processes and design are more akin to science and technology (Chaps. 8 and 9) and policy and diplomacy (Chaps. 10 and 11). Intent– the leverage point for deep transfor-mation in mindset and paradigms– has to do with values and ethics, subject of this chapter.7.2 Sustainability asValueHow do we value ‘things’? Himes and Muraca (2018) argue that valuation arises in the space of encounter between the subject and the object (which I call here the ‘thing’, since it can be material or ideal). Valuation, therefore, combines both objective and subjective elements and is, in essence, relational. Indeed, there is both a con-scious element of valuation as we identify things, and an unconscious one, an intuitive sense of importance that captures our attention when the thing matters. Table 7.1 distinguishes between three types of value concepts: intrinsic value, instrumental value, and relational value (Stålhammar and Thorén 2019). Based on these definitions, one can sense sustainability as having an intrinsic value, as an end in itself, in the shape of a moral conduct towards Earth. However, it can also be perceived as means to an end, as an antidote to the Anthropocene risks, and thus it can also have an instrumental value and now appears as label to products the market wants to sell us: it gets a price tag on. Finally, sustainabil-ity is also– and perhaps above all– relational: a value that emerges from our relationships with other people, with non-human elements of nature and with ourselves. Relations that provide a sense of wholeness, respectful of differences and diver-sity, are reminiscent of the vision Amerigo Vespucci had when in contact with the Tupinambá people– that which I called the ‘love trinity’ in Chap. 4: to love non-human nature, humans, and oneself. This state is in profound contrast with the modern worldview that has placed non- human elements of nature outside the moral com-munity, viewing nature as a collection of objects to be used as commodities, according to the ben-efit of property owners (Koons 2008). To a large extent, capitalism has also turned other people into commodities and so it did to ourselves. Hannah Arendt’s argument that modernity imposed a double alienation (from Earth and from the world that surrounds us) is particularly appropriate in this context (Macauley 1996). Indeed, one could actually name it a ‘triple alien-ation’: from non-human nature, from other humans and from oneself.However, sustainability according to the hege-monic view finds its pillars in another trinity, known as the ‘triple bottom line’: social, eco-nomic and environmental (Fig.7.1). Purvis etal. (2019) searched for a rigorous description of these three pillars and found none, which they think hinders a rigorous operationalisation of the Table 7.1 The three types of value concepts, based on Stålhammar and Thorén (2019)Values Scope and definitionIntrinsic That which has value by itself, as an end in a moral sense, and is therefore non-instrumental, intangible. It can also be perceived as valuable due to its intrinsic properties and are thus non-relational. Finally, it can also be seen as objective value, i.e. value irrespective of an evaluative subject.Instrumental That which has value as a means to an end and is, therefore, tangible. It can oftenbe expressed in monetary or non-monetary forms.Relational That which emerges from the relationship with ‘things’, be them other persons, elements of nature, places, philosophies, etc. thus, it varies immensely between different cultures and worldviews. Its recent application includes fields such as environmental ethics, ecosystem service valuation and environmental psychology.7 Sustainability asaMoral Value Requires New Ethics57socialenvironmenteconomicsustainableFig. 7.1 One of the representations of the sustainability’s triple bottom line as intersecting circlesconcept. They believe this is due to the fact that the sustainability rationale emerged from differ-ent schools of thought.The debate around ‘weak’ (social component predominant) vs. ‘strong’ sustainability (environ-mental component predominant) relates directly to the triple bottom line and shows that sustain-ability as value is in dispute (even within the hegemonic outlook), largely because the three dimensions still did not overcome trade-offs and conflicts. Beckerman (1995) admits that strong sustainability relates to moral values when he argues that there is ‘some intrinsic value in non- sentient forms of natural capital’ (p.173). But he also warns that ‘democratic societies should be very wary of those who claim, without full expla-nation, that the activities that they happen to pre-fer should be elevated to some over-riding moral value to which individuals should willingly sacri-fice themselves’ (p.175).In modern society, sustainability became a normative goal (i.e. a desire based on beliefs and values), and moving forward means further inte-grating social, economic and environmental modules. In parallel, it is also an issue related to collective, common goods and relations, and as such individual actors have no immediate incen-tive to address sustainability problems (Geels 2010). There emerges a conundrum: public authorities and civil society are expected to be key drivers of a possible transition to sustainabil-ity, but individual actors– which largely define action and attitude of public authorities and civil society– may not feel incentivised for changes, for instance, in production and consumption. Of course – even within the modern perspective – this demands changes in individual mindset towards more collective concerns that include present and future generations of human and non-human beings. Such change in mindset and paradigms– ‘intent’– is precisely the strongest leverage point for sustainability transformation according to Meadows (1999). Inner transforma-tion remains an understudied dimension of sus-tainability transformation (Woiwode etal. 2021) and is at least as important, if not prerequisite, for outer transformation. This is further examined in Chaps. 11 and 13.Nevertheless, the modern perspective on sus-tainability, while hegemonic, is not the only one. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES,2022, p. 4) claims that ‘most policymaking approaches have priori-tized a narrow set of values at the expense of both nature and society, as well as future generations, and have often ignored values associated to indigenous peoples and local communities’ worldviews’. I would add that even other forms of interpretation of reality of the Eurocentric world, such as the arts, the religions and various social movements, are not part of this conversa-tion, as is discussed in Part III.7.3 Sustainability EthicsIn 1972, nearly in parallel to the UN Stockholm Conference, German philosopher Hans Jonas (1903–1993)– a disciple from Martin Heidegger (Chap. 5)– argued for the need of a new global ethics directed towards future generations – an ethics of the species– since traditional Kantian ethics are locally based and present time– an eth-ics of the individual (Jonas 1979, 2017). The new ethics of responsibility that Jonas proposes is directed towards future generations, people who are not living yet, and who, in present, do not have a voice or a ‘lobby’, in his words. Thus, sustainability, as a moral value, combines human-itarian and environmental values related to inter-generational justice.7.3 Sustainability Ethics58This has provoked the emergence of ecocen-tric principles such as environmental ethics (e.g. Barrett and Grizzle 1999) and the call for a more ecocentric jurisprudence (Berry 1999). Berry (1999) named ‘Great Work’ the transition of modern society from being a disrupting force to becoming a benign presence on Earth. For that, a new jurisprudence is needed whereby living and non-living elements of the Earth system are treated as commons, which perhaps would require, as Latour (2004) calls it, a ‘parliament of things’: a forum where moderns will be able to dialogue with voices ignored today: of non- human species, of children, of humans with dif-ficulties in expressing themselves, and of the supernatural. Berry’s Great Work and Latour’s parliament are in many ways aligned with the principles of Jonas’s ethics of responsibility. Berry’s views are reported to have inspired the concepts of ‘Earth Jurisprudence’ and ‘Wild Law’ (Garver 2019). The Earth Jurisprudence is about rethinking the law to revalue nature consid-ering its moral status (Koons 2008). The Wild Law first appeared as a manifesto proposing to direct human law towards being ‘whole- maintaining’ for Earth systems (Anker 2021).There are now institutions and centres for Earth Jurisprudence in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, among others (Kauffman and Martin 2017). Related trends can also be observed in Latin America. In 2008, Ecuador was the first country to recognise the rights of nature in its constitution (Beling et al. 2018, Kauffman and Martin 2017). In Bolivia, the legislation related to The Rights of Mother Earth appeared shortly after that and has components related to (1) right to life and the diversity of life; (2) right to stabi-lise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent danger-ous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, and in sufficient time to allow the com-ponents of Mother Earth to adapt naturally to cli-mate change; (3) non-commodification of the environmental functions of Mother Earth; (4) right to support the restoration and regeneration capabilities of all its components that enables the continuity of life cycles; and (5) right to clean air and to live without contamination (Pacheco 2014). This logic begins to spread. In Brazil, for the first time in history, a river (Rio Doce, in the States of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo), rep-resented by an NGO (Associação Pachamama), has entered a lawsuit asking for the recognition of its rights to life and demanding a plan for disaster risk reduction for the local population in the watershed (Scarano et al. 2018). This took place in 2017, two years after the river was impacted by the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history, with the collapse of a dam and the spill of 40–62 million m3 of mining tailings in the river (Garcia et al. 2017; Pires et al. 2017). The Rio Doce river did not ‘win’ the battle in court, but in Colombia, another river, Rio Atrato, has been recognised as ‘subject of law’ by the national Constitutional Court (Câmara and Fernandes 2018).Of course, these ethical principles and legal innovations directly challenge the hegemonic capitalist paradigm by intent and are important leverage points for transformation. For instance, this is clearly stated by the ecofeminist move-ment that stands against capitalist exploitation of women and nature and defends the commons, i.e. ‘new and already existing social relations (‘ancient futures’) that defend and build shared control over the means of life, while prioritising those who are the most exploited and undermined by capitalism’ (Giacomini etal. 2018, p.5). This reference to ‘ancient futures’ is analogous to what some call ‘ancestral futures’ (e.g. Wildförsters and Zyman 2016; Krenak 2022) that, in turn, brings indigenous and local peoples’ worldviews on nature to the forefront of the ethi-cal discussion on sustainability. Brondizio etal. (2021), in a thorough review of the subject, list a number of indigenous perspectives that challenge hegemonic modern views on sustainability and are also related to commons, such as health of the land, ‘caring for country’ and reciprocal respon-sibility (see also Chaps. 11 and 13). Both in the case of ecofeminists and indigenous peoples, it is clear that an ethics for sustainability is required not onlyfor the relationship between humans and non-human nature but also for the interactions between humans. Thus, a pluralistic approach to 7 Sustainability asaMoral Value Requires New Ethics59sustainability is required not only for values and ethics related to biodiversity (e.g. Pascual etal. 2021) but also for human rights (e.g. Obani and Gupta 2014).Finally, the changes in ethics by the emer-gence of sustainability as value bring additional challenges to science and policy. For instance, consequences of climate change and biodiversity decline– such as major disasters and pandemic episodes– imply losses to people. Wars also do so. Loss arises when people are dispossessed of things they relate to and value; things that cannot be replaced: from health and safety to freedom and self-esteem to places, social cohesion and cultures (Barnett etal. 2016). The United Nations Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage and Article 8 of the Paris Agreement address this concern and Earth Jurisprudence and alike may also address some of that, but there remain many gaps regarding compensation mechanisms (Boyd etal. 2021). Will science be able to increasingly back up climate justice or any decision-making that allows for fairness in compensating, overcoming, minimising or avoid-ing destructive consequences of losses?7.4 Final RemarksPluralism as attitude and mindset is a key lever-age point for sustainability transition. Part I of this book shows that society moved from a plu-ralistic view of nature to one that is hegemonic and contrary to many of the ancestral traditions of the world. Since this has led the planet into the Anthropocene, society cannot make the same mistake and turn sustainability into something only the modern paradigm relates to. 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Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_88Sustainability Science or Sciences?8.1 IntroductionThe word ‘science’, from its Latin root (scientia), means ‘knowledge’. However, as we have seen in Chap. 5, ‘science’ became synonymous with ‘modern science’, which is one among many types of knowledge. Modern science’s reduction-ist approach was to reduce the whole into parts, to first understand the parts before understanding the whole. Nearly 500 years later, subdivisions continue. Nevertheless, there are some branches of modern science that attempt to address the whole. Sustainability science is one of such cases. Its emergence as a new research frame-work is evidenced by the existence of a number of important scientific journals and conferences entirely or partly dedicated tothe theme (Clark 2007; Bettencourt & Kaur 2011; Spangenberg 2011). It was inaugurated some 30years ago and took it around 20 years to achieve a more robust conceptual and practical whole out of the com-mon methodologies designed to connect knowl-edge and methods from a variety of traditional disciplines (Bettencourt and Kaur 2011). Despite the abundance of theoretical and structural stud-ies (e.g. Kumazawa et al. 2009; Jerneck et al. 2011; Miller etal. 2014) and of empirical studies (e.g. Gruen etal. 2008; Ostrom 2009), the impact of sustainability research on societal transforma-tions was (Van der Leeuw etal. 2012; Wiek etal. 2012), and to a large extent still is, smaller than desired (Ives etal. 2020). Why so?Clearly, despite its attempt for a more holistic approach, sustainability science still has many subdivisions. They have been described as result-ing from ‘constructive tensions’ (Wiek et al. 2012) between ‘critical’ (or ‘descriptive- analytical’) and ‘problem-solving’ (or ‘transfor-mational’) approaches (Jerneck etal. 2011; Wiek etal. 2012). While the former sought an under-standing of sustainability challenges, the latter aimed for practical solutions to those issues. The various definitions and commentaries about sus-tainability science in Table 8.1 reveal that tension.Nevertheless, during the past decade, sustain-ability science and transdisciplinarity coevolved towards more transformational concerns, which turns it closer to the definition of a postnormal science: one that has a transdisciplinary nature and informs decision-making and the society in general (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993). The ques-tion that remains refers to what a transforma-tional knowledge is.A decade ago, a thorough review of the litera-ture (Becker 2002; Jahn etal. 2012) has defined three types of knowledge framework for transdis-ciplinarity: (1) systems knowledge, or the knowl-edge involved in the understanding of an issue; (2) orientation knowledge, or the knowledge requi red for decision-making; and (3) transformation knowledge, or the ways and means of practically realising such decision. This distinction is related to the usability of the science: systems knowledge http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_8&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_864Table 8.1 Some definitions of and statements about Sustainability ScienceDefinitions References‘Seeks to understand the fundamental character of interactions between nature and society’Kates etal. (2001)‘Transcends the concerns of its foundational disciplines and focuses instead on understanding the complex dynamics that arise from interactions between human and environmental systems’Clark (2007)Has ‘its own specific body of knowledge and framework with which to address sustainability issues, even while retaining relationships with other disciplines (…) currently a work in progress, and therefore one may argue that it is still too early to discuss what sustainability science is’Kajikawa (2008)‘A dynamic and evolving transdisciplinary effort addressing symbiosis between human activity and the environment, providing visions and scenarios indicating transition pathways towards global sustainability while elucidating relevant decisions and agents (…) research providing the necessary insights to make the normative concept of sustainability operational, and the means to plan and implement adequate steps towards this end’Spangenberg (2011)‘A solution-oriented endeavour’ that ‘must address two additional streams of research questions: First, the normative question of how coupled human–environment systems would function and look like in compliance with a variety of value-laden goals and objectives (…); and, second, the strategic and operational questions that explore which transition pathways are viable for coupled human–environment systems and strategies that find what solutions to sustainability problems could be’Wiek etal. (2012)‘Seeks to address the major challenges facing society while ensuring that human well-being is undiminished and the basic Earth systems continue to operate’Redman (2014)(continued)Table 8.1 (continued)Definitions References‘Transformation to sustainability can be defined as physical and/or qualitative changes in form, structure or meaning-making, but can also be understood as a psycho-social process, involving the unleashing of human potential to commit, care for and effect change for a better life’Horlings (2015)‘Probes interactions between global, social, and human systems, the complex degradation mechanisms of these systems, and the concomitant risks to human well-being’Saito etal. (2017)is ‘useful’, orientation knowledge is ‘usable’ and transformation knowledge is ‘ready to use’ (Lemos 2015; Wiek and Lang 2016; Toomey etal. 2017). Therefore, even if we assume that all science is potentially useful, it is not necessarily immediately usable or ready to use (Lemos 2015). Brink et al. (2016, 2018) apply this scheme of knowledge usability to address sustainability issues, which highlights a clear parallel between the sustainability tension and the transdisciplinar-ity tension.Usability of scientific knowledge has often been associated with credibility, relevance and legitimacy of the knowledge in question, thus the CRELE modelemerged and this acronym refers to the three traits. The legitimacy component requires transdisciplinarity, i.e. to move beyond academic walls (Sarkki etal. 2014, 2015; Heink etal. 2015). Sustainability science is increasingly developing a routine of generating actionable, ready to use, knowledge, and intense dialogue and action outside academia (see also Chap. 10), both incorporating non-scientific knowledge and dealing with different values and political inter-ests (Popa et al. 2015). However, some divides still remain, and further integration is needed (Lang etal. 2017). This chapter examines present divergences and potential for convergences in sustainability science to address the question if sustainability science is one or many.8.2 DisputesTable 8.2 displays the current disputes in the realm of sustainability science. The main dispute, largely related to values, is between a substantial-ist view and a relational view. The substantialist 8 Sustainability Science or Sciences?65Table 8.2 Divides (vs.) or potential integration (+) in sustainability science, within and between distinct lines of research. Typically, different specialist approaches com-pete (vs.), but there is great potential for convergence (+) within and between research linesSubstantialist (sustainable development)Relational (holistic sustainability)Social (vs./+) Socioecological InnerEconomic (vs./+)(vs./+) (vs./+)Environmental (vs./+)Sociotechnical Socialview is typically within the modern paradigm, addresses sustainable development and focuses on interactions between entities, i.e. social, eco-nomic and environmental components of a given system are approached as different classes that interact (e.g. Clark and Harley 2020). The rela-tional view intends to approach a given system as a whole, with continually unfolding processes and relations, and promoting interactions between modern and non-modern worldviews, thus com-prising distinct disciplines, commitments, theo-ries and ideas (e.g. West etal. 2020).8.2.1 The Substantialist ViewThe substantialist view is predominant within the history of sustainability science, and it is the approach that is more often used to guide policies and societal transformations. However, it bears a number of contradictions. First of all, if the mod-ern paradigm of economic growth brought the planet into the Anthropocene, it is unclear how sustainable development with its economic pillar can revert that (Biely etal. 2018; see also Chaps. 1 and 11). Second, in doing so, it excludes other worldviews, some of which have become victims of the modern capitalist enterprise (Caniglia etal. 2021). Third, it still falls short of expectations about the integration of its three elements– eco-nomic, social and environmental. For instance, by 2012, the economic pillar had the fewest papers published but was the most integrative, while the environmental pillar, on the contrary, had the most articles but drew the least from out-side disciplines (Schoolman etal. 2012). Finally, there is an apparent lack of a theoretically solid conception that hinders a rigorous operationalisa-tion of the sustainability concept from the three- pillar perspective (Purvis etal. 2019).The debate between weak vs. strong sustain-ability (e.g. Buriti 2019) is further evidence of the prevailing reductionism of the substantialist view. Weak sustainability is based on the premise that the economic pillar of sustainability can be traded off for environmental aspects through technology. In other words, economic growth and resource consumption could be decoupled, since current resource extraction is supposedly justifi-able by this logic when reinvested in the develop-ment of technologies that allow less material and energy use. Biely et al. (2018) argue that weak sustainability is illegitimate and a contradiction in terms, since the current unsustainable eco-nomic paradigm is based on it. Strong sustain-ability, instead, does not see economy as superior to the environment and does not expect techno-logical innovations to provide the sole solution for the sustainability challenge. This debate underlies schools of research in sustainability science, namely the divide between socioecologi-cal systems and sociotechnical systems that are often studied in isolation (Pant etal. 2015).Research on socioecological systems exam-ines how society is impacted and eventually adapts (or are resilient) to various shocks and stresses imposed by the Anthropocene regime: climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, etc. Sociotechnical systems research is interested in interactions of the society with science and technology for effective change management to foster transitions to low carbon systems in vari-ous industrial and business sectors– agriculture and fisheries, energy, extractives, tourism, etc. (Pant etal. 2015, Scarano 2017, see also Chaps. 9 and 10).Some of the various challenges presented by the divides inside the substantialist view of sus-tainability science could perhaps be addressed if this science is to become more transformational. Clark and Harley (2020) claim that it should advance to build six capacities: to measure sus-tainable development, to promote equity, to adapt 8.2 Disputes66to shocks and surprises, to transform the system into more sustainable development pathways, to link knowledge with action and to devise gover-nance arrangements that allow people to work together in exercising the other capacities. However, further integration would still be needed with the relational view.8.2.2 The Relational ViewThe relational view proposes a paradigm shift in the substantialist approach to sustainability sci-ence, which is oriented towards sustainable development, and argues that this is essential for societal transformation. It follows the relational turn in humanities and social sciences to counter modern dichotomies, based on the assumption that such approach fosters a more holistic per-spective of human-nature and body-mind con-nectedness, the inclusion of more situated and diverse knowledges for decision-making, and practical interventions based on local relation-ships (West etal. 2020). A key principle here is that processes and relations are constitutive of entities and subjects, rather than being derivative (Muraca 2011). West etal. (2020) recognise four themes in relational thinking: continually unfold-ing processes, embodied experience, reconstruct-ing language and concepts and ethics/practices of care. Critical readings of relational thinking applied to sustainability highlight methodologi-cal challenges and pragmatic applications (Raymond et al. 2021). However, relational thinking enthusiasts (West et al. 2020, 2021; Walsh et al. 2021) and their critics (Raymond etal. 2021) seem to agree that it is less a case of either one approach or the other, but of promot-ing reflexivity and dialogues for convergence.There is still another dispute. This one is located within the relational sustainability sci-ence realm and has to do with the focus on inner transformation or social transformation as lever-age points. The argument raised by Ives et al. (2020) is that concerns with external phenomena and collective social structures have resulted in individual neglect of inner worlds. The principle that emotions are important drivers of motivation and action for transformation (McShea 2017) is a strong premise behind the ‘inner’ agenda for sus-tainability. Moreover, sustainability transition will require profound shifts in mindset, beliefs and values, which begin individually (Horlings 2015). Thus, mindfulness, meditation, religion and spirituality are now part of the sustainability research agenda (Hitzhuzen and Tucker 2013; Dhiman and Marques 2016; Siqueira and Pitassi 2016; Wamsler and Brink 2018). Critics see this inward turn as an ‘extreme form of methodologi-cal individualism’ (Boda etal. 2022, p.291) and, while recognising the importance of the individ-ual perspective, believe that changes emerge out of collective action via social movements. Advocates of the inward turn (e.g. Woiwode etal. 2021) see a number of fronts for further develop-ment of the inner dimension of sustainability as a research programme, including theory (e.g. how inner transformations relate to sustainability tran-sition and transdisciplinarity) and practice (e.g. place-based empirical research, cross-cultural studies).8.3 Convergence ofaPostnormal ScienceI have previously used the theoretical framework of Argentinian philosopher Mario Bunge (2003) to address the emergence of sustainability (Scarano 2019), while aware that there are many connotations and approaches to emergence (Banzhaf 2014). At that point I was more con-cerned with how sustainability appeared as nov-elty, and now I am more interested on where it might go as a scientific practice engaged in trans-formation. Bunge (2003) extensively focuses on emergence as novelty: it ‘occurs every time a qualitative new whole appears’. It is interesting though that, while holistic by nature, sustainabil-ity science has parts and disputes, as we have just seen. Emergence, in Bunge’s rationale, calls for convergence between ‘initially separate approaches and fields’. Convergence in this sense is synonym to unification, merger, integration and therefore requires what Bunge calls ‘glue’ concepts or hypotheses to bind together different 8 Sustainability Science or Sciences?67Fig. 8.1 Sustainability science emerged from the conver-gence of natural and social sciences (bottom). However, it now diverges into distinct lines of research that produce new modules, at least partly related to distinct world-views: towards the left side, research takes place with the sustainable development paradigm; towards the right side, research is often within the scope of non-modern, post- development paradigmscomponents or modules. Conversely, emergence can also take place as a result of divergence or splitting of a whole entity.My argument was that sustainability (in the modern sense) emerged as a novelty out of inde-pendent lines of inquiry, such as sociology, eco-nomics and ecology in the science realm, and out of the tension between environmentalism and development as social movements or ideologies. In other words, sustainabilityemerged from cross-disciplinary collaboration in science and multisectoral dialogue in the policy arena (Scarano 2019). This new whole, sustainability science, from its original modern focus on sus-tainable development, has apparently diverged in the several new lines of inquiry discussed above and shown in Fig.8.1. Since this has taken place mostly during the past 10 years, these new lines of research remain connected and – to some extent– in dialogue (e.g. Ives etal. 2020; West et al. 2020, 2021; Raymond e al. 2021; Boda et al. 2022). The tone of most papers reviewed here indicates that these new ‘modules’ (as Bunge calls these smaller, divergent units) may converge to give emergence to a more robust and inclusive sustainability science. For this to hap-pen and for sustainability science to become as transformative as it aspires, it will be necessary more than ‘glue concepts’, which Bunge deemed essential for convergence. ‘Glue values’, ‘glue policies’ and ‘glue dialogues’ will also be needed and will be examined in the upcoming chapters.Postnormal science, as defined by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993), deals with complexity and is expected to have a transdisciplinary nature and inform decision-making and the society. Sustainability science is an appropriate match for this definition, as we have seen so far. Moreover, it has also been claimed that postnormal science is needed when information is incomplete or uncertain, when there are pluralistic values in dispute, when stakes are high and decisions urgent– as in the times we live through (Chap. 6). It relies on an extended community of practice that aims to produce knowledge fit for end users, without the constraints of settled scientific para-digms (Buschke et al. 2019). Given this align-ment, it is not surprising that sustainability is the core value of postnormal science, since the ulti-mate goal of the latter is to ‘contribute to more 8.3 Convergence ofaPostnormal Science68sustainable forms of development’ (Kønig etal. 2017, p.17). It seems surprising that this align-ment between sustainability science and postnor-mal science has seldom been explored in the literature (e.g. Raymond et al. 2019). There is space for further convergence on this front.8.4 Final RemarksThere are many research modules to converge in order for a more robust sustainability science to emerge, especially because the predominant modern, substantialist approach does not suf-fice. The fact that the 30years of sustainability science did not move the needle decisively towards the sustainable development desired by the hegemonic perspective is perhaps evidence of that. As we saw in the previous chapter and now, pluralistic values, including non-modern ones, must be part of the dialogue regarding transformations and also knowledge production. Many of these values are outside the scope of the modern science, which has had as an unfor-tunate outcome the ‘dictatorship of reason’ (Saul 1992). It is not science’s fault, but of all those who used modern science to simply replace one hegemony by another (see Chaps. 3–6). 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R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_99How Sustainable Is theTechnosphere?9.1 IntroductionThe technosphere is the sphere of artificial matter constructed by humans across history. It is a set of technical and technological objects built and installed on the planet (Folke et al. 2021) that might soon exceed the mass of all living things on Earth (Elhacham et al. 2020). This concept, forwarded by Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky (Vernadsky 1938/1997), was for him one of the two emergent properties of the human component of the biosphere alongside with the noosphere, the sphere of human consciousness and knowledge. Prophetically, between the two World Wars, Vernadsky posited that the human mind, through science and engineering, would become the main driving force for global envi-ronmental change, thus anticipating the Anthropocene (Guillaume 2014). His concerned view was met by the optimistic notion of his French contemporary Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit and philosopher, who thought that technology would help humans get along increasingly better with one another, to the extent that he believed radio and television anticipated telepathic com-munication (Chardin 1946/2004; see also Chap. 6 for more on this debate).In many ways, this manichean discussion about technology being good or evil has a long tradition and still persists. After all, it is cutting- edge technology that bothcures diseases and pro-duces weapons of mass destruction. Martin Heidegger’s (1949/1977) ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ embraces the central premise to the argument developed in this chap-ter: if technology is not applied to achieve ‘plan-etary well-being’ (as I am calling sustainability at its broadest sense, inclusive of human and non- human beings), it is because we have not per-ceived its essence yet. Technologies are tools developed by humans to produce good and wel-fare, not the opposite. Heidegger, however, rec-ognises the fact that it is a thin line that separates technology that nurtures the power to sustainably solve problems from technology that becomes risky and dangerous. One example of the paradox Heidegger refers to is that of technology and labour, explored by Bertrand Russell (1935/2002) in his ‘In Praise of Idleness’. He argued then– well before the days of highspeed transportation and communication– that with all the technology available, humans would not need more than 30hours per week of work journey to deliver on their jobs. This would allow us to have more hours of productive idleness, to create, relate and care. Instead, technology seems to make us work more, as we are invaded by various media during and beyond working hours in the ‘liquid moder-nity’, as defined by Zygmunt Bauman (2008/2011).The technosphere is present on Earth to a point that the planet’s ‘flesh’ (how Merleau- Ponty 1964/2018 called the biosphere) is often mixed with technology to the point of indistinction. http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_9&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_972There are ducts, subways, subterranean galleries, and underwater tunnels, cities and constructions, all kinds of tools for transportation and commu-nication, robots, computers and genetically mod-ified organisms. The list is endless. Humans also seem to embark on a process of fusion and even hybridisation with technology and post-humanist and transhumanist philosophies emerge, as I dis-cuss later in this chapter. Altogether, this leads some to call this era the Technocene– rather than the Anthropocene. Hornborg (2015), for instance, argues that the transformations the planet is going through are not directly inflicted by humans, but by an emergent property from our way to organ-ise socially, based on technology and capital – namely, capitalism. Of course, this leads to a multitude of names: Capitalocene, Plantationocene and Chthulucene, as summarised and/or proposed by Donna Haraway (2015). Irrespective of how one calls it, it is within this paradigm that both benefits and negative impacts of industrialisation are distributed unequally by distinct social layers. James Lovelock (2019), who in the 1970s proposed the Gaia theory with Lynn Margulis, speaks of the Novacene– an era when intelligences faster and superior than the human will be generated by technology. For him, this would not fit the Technocene definition, because humans and machines would need to work together to sustain Gaia.We saw in Chap. 6 that the prefixes ‘post’ and ‘eco’ are by now abundant and are used to speak of a time that differs or a worldview (even when we cannothttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_3xiiiModernity has alienated humans from the world that surrounds them: from nature, from other people and from their own individual beings. As a result, the planet was driven by human attitude into an era of crisis and natural unbalance, the Anthropocene. Sustainability has emerged as an antidote to present day and future malaises. However, the hegemonic sustainability dis-course is framed within modern fences, i.e. the same logic that drove the planet into the Anthropocene in the first place. For this reason, it seems increasingly unlikely that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals will drive the world to desirable future planetary states when all beings live well, humans and non-humans. Sustainability in its broadest sense of planetary wellbeing will require that ongoing dialogues are expanded to include both non-modern worldviews (e.g. indigenous and local knowledge) and non-scientific forms of interpretation of reality (e.g. arts, philosophy, reli-gion). This inclusive conversation can regenerate the fractures that have rup-tured the connections between the ‘three ecologies’ – of self, social, and environment– and reintegrate humans to the world, to nature as wholeness.Indeed, such as in the case of the narrow modern meaning of the word ‘sustainability’, the same happened to the word ‘nature’. In most languages of the world, it means wholeness, but for modern society the meaning shifted to the ‘non-human’, the ‘other’. The word ‘future’ has also a narrow mean-ing: it is no longer a time, but a place, a measure of success. The introductory Chap.1, ‘Dialectics as a Therapy Against the Modern Ignorance that Produces Planetary Crises’, presents the central argument of the book that healing of modern fractures should emerge from a multiactor and multispecies global dialogue, in a dialectic process in the Platonic sense: a therapy to the soul that leads to knowledge, overcoming pathological ignorance. Nature, sustainabil-ity, dialogues and futures are the four keywords of the book, explored in four parts: I. Nature Across Times; II. Sustainability Emerges; III. Deepening Sustainability; IV.Sustainable Futures.Part I offers a brief historical and philosophical overview of the concept of nature– from Ancient Greece to postmodern views. It is divided in five chap-ters. Chapter 2, ‘Anima Mundi: Nature and Philosophy in Ancient Greece’, presents pre-Socratic, Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian views and appro-aches to nature. Their concerns, from the basic elements of life, early classi-fication systems, astronomy and cosmology through to the placement of the humans on Earth and in the Cosmos. In these early days, philosophy was a philosophy of nature, which by then was still inclusive of humans. Chapter 3, Prefacexiv‘Saints, Witches and Poets: Nature and Religion in the Middle Ages’, dis-cusses how humans developed a stronger impression of control over nature, largely influenced by religion. Nature, at times, was a nurturing mother; in other occasions, a punishing tyrant. Since this age covered no less than 1,000 years, it is of course by no means uniform. I explore three distinct perspec-tives: the religious (examining the thoughts of Saint Augustine, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Thomas Aquinas), the poetic (especially the literature of Bocaccio and Chaucer) and the political (witch-hunting, land property and use). Chapter 4, ‘Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans’, examines Early Modernitythat saw two major events in planetary history: the advent of modern science and the arrival of the European colonisers in the Americas. Humanism rises and so do many contradictions. Particular atten-tion is dedicated to Amerigo Vespucci, whose vision is a western precursor of the sustainability utopia, but was so far not accomplished, since European colonisation meant eradication of many local indigenous peoples, slavery and nature degradation. Chapter 5, ‘The Modern Divorce Between Nature and Culture’, describes the past 300 years when Europeans definitely perceived themselves as being superior, and capable to control nature. Nature then becomes the ‘other’, the ‘not-I’ that one does not dialogue with, an entity humans relate with either as an obstacle or a commodity. Humanism, scien-tific reductionism, industrialisation and the French Revolution, alongside with the increasing sophistication of science, technology and philosophical thought, were unable to avoid multiple planetary crises, but were actually partly responsible for them. Sustainability emerges as a new holistic vision, but in many ways remains confined to modern paradigm. Chapter 6, ‘Postmodern or Postnormal? Are We Farther or Closer to Nature?’, closes Part I introducing postmodern movement as a reaction to Modernity and post-normal times as a transition period from Modernity to a new, yet unknown state. The way this future state will look like depends on what we do now. The chapter discusses exemplary cases of dialogue between science and philoso-phy with historical visions of wholeness addressed in previous chapters: (1) scientific theories related to the biosphere, Gaia and autopoiesis; and (2) the philosophical approaches to ecology, known as ecosophy. This bridges with Part II.Part II, Sustainability Emerges, also has five chapters. In Chap. 7, ‘Sustainability as Moral Value Requires New Ethics’, my argument is that sustainability emerges in the post-war, capitalist world, as a value and that this demands a new ethics of responsibility that is not quite there yet. It dis-cusses Environmental Ethics, Rights of Nature and Earth Jurisprudence as early symptoms of the emergence of a new sustainability ethics. Chapter 8, ‘Sustainability Science or Sciences?’, portrays the emergence of sustainabil-ity science as resulting of the encounter between various scientific disciplines applied to the solution of complex issues of practical and political relevance. It examines the current divergence between the substantialist approach and the relational approach. The former is the modern approach and largely relates to the balance of the importance given to each of the three sustainabil-ity pillars: social, economic, environmental. The latter aims to dissolve the walls that separate the three pillars in a more holistic view. Sustainability Prefacexvscience then is approached as a postnormal science that still requires further convergence between the various different lines of research to better assist transition to a state of planetary wellbeing. Chapter 9, ‘How Sustainable Is the Technosphere?’, sees technology as partly cause of the current planetary crisis, and partly as potential solution. By reflecting on sustainable transitions and transformations, the chapter discusses the modern notion of innovation and how it is often centred in technology that aims for profit and power. Examples of inclusive and social technology, inclusive design, as well as cases of sustainable use of existing technologies, indicate both the expansion of the horizons of research on sociotechnical systems and the potential role of individuals and collectives in promoting transition and transformation. Chapter 10, ‘Sustainability Policies and Diplomacy’, examines how sustain-ability is dealt with as a diplomatic object and how multilateral agreements percolate to and interact with national and local decision-making. The main actors engaged in sustainability policy and diplomacy are discussed: multilat-erals, governments, companies, academia, civil society, and individual con-sumers. The convergence between development policies and environmental policies was summoned by the Rio Conventions to give rise to sustainability policies, which were advanced by a set of consolidated global agreements. Finally, it portrays the decade 2021–2030 as a testing ground for science and policy-making alike.quite define it) that denies the previous ones. It seems that the geological suffix ‘cene’ is also becoming abundant for similar reasons: to indicate that history changed or is changing. However, when in Chap. 6 I talked about tradi-tional, modern and postmodern worldviews, I was referring to things that coexist (even though one of them, namely the modern, is hegemonic). The suffix ‘cene’ suggests irreversibility. The Anthropocene is irreversible (Corlett 2015; Bińczyk 2019) and so is climate change that by now we need to adapt to (IPCC 2014). If our use of technology brought us to this state, it might seem surprising that Pacala and Socolow (2004) have argued nearly 20 years ago that with the technological repertoire available then humans could meet the energy demands for the next 50years at a low carbon profile. How has this not been done, and why does global society keep increasing greenhouse gas emissions every year? Capitalism may explain that. If irreversibility is a keyword, as we have trespassed planetary bound-aries (Steffen et al. 2015; Chap. 5), technology may become the new foundation of ecology if human habitability on Earth becomes increas-ingly a technological issue. This chapter addresses the question of where innovation for sustainability lies, but first, I introduce what I refer to as ‘innovation’ in this book.9.2 How Novel Is Our View onInnovation?With the emergence of sustainability as value and science (Chaps. 7 and 8), there is a collective demand for transitions and transformations to overcome the unsustainability of current social systems. Transition is the word more often applied to changes in subsystems, such as energy, mobility and agriculture, whereas transformation refers to large-scale changes in technologies, institutions and environment in sociotechnical- ecological aspects (Hölscher et al. 2018). Both transitions and transformations demand innovations.Thus, the question of how innovative is what we call innovation is a very relevant one. The industrialisation history of the past 250years, the so-called First Deep Transition, shows clearly a number of caveats that need fixing, such as those related to its outcome in the shape of a double challenge of environmental degradation and social inequalities (Schot and Kanger 2018). These same authors believe that a ‘Second Deep Transition’ may already be underway, given all the new alternative trends on food, mobility and energy practices, as well as the global sustain-ability policies that emerged in the past few decades (Kanger and Schot 2019; Chaps. 10 and 11). The Deep Transition framework, however, is exclusively sociotechnical and assumes that innovation for sustainability transition will take 9 How Sustainable Is theTechnosphere?73place in the sociotechnical sphere. It deems socioecological processes less relevant, which seems highly contradictory, particularly consid-ering that the main negative outcomes of the First Deep Transition are of socioecological order (Kanger and Schot 2019).Innovation may take place at the level of pro-cess, product or mindset (Kahn 2018). Sustainability-oriented innovations arguably require all of those from the start, if we assume that the sustainability mindset (in a ‘planetary well-being’ perspective; Chap. 6) is still missing. For instance, from a modern business point of view, such innovations should also have favour-able economic outcomes, which involve a num-ber of factors related to technologies available, market forces, image, government regulations, etc. (Buhl etal. 2019). Given the complexity that innovation systems entail, specific policies and governance for innovations to promote transition are also a key piece in the sustainability puzzle (Fagerberg 2018).Otto et al. (2020) listed a set of necessary interventions to promote a transition to carbon- neutral societies until 2030, with expected posi-tive economic outcomes and that will require innovation policies and governance: (1) to end subsidies and divest from assets linked to fossil fuels; (2) to reveal the moral implications of fos-sil fuels and disclose information on greenhouse gas emission, strengthening climate education and engagement; (3) to incentivise decentralised energy generation; and (4) to build carbon- neutral cities. This is in harmony with a recent World Economic Forum report that demonstrates that major transitions will need to take place in three large sociotechnical systems – namely food, land-use and ocean use; infrastructure and built environment; and energy and extractives– which in the process would also reduce biodiversity loss (WEF 2020). This report also estimates the costs for transitions and potential return on investments.All these options, however, are within the framework of what Kanger and Schot (2019) call the First Deep Transition, precisely the same one that brought the planet to its present state. Whether exclusively sociotechnical (Otto et al. 2020) or sociotechnical-ecological (WEF 2020), these approaches remain within the modern, cap-italist framework, which of course raises doubts as to the extent that they could circumvent the existing double challenge of social inequality and environmental degradation. This is not to say that these types of transitions would not be necessary, but the question is as to whether they would be sufficient or even feasible to trigger global scale transformations – especially considering that 20 years ago there was enough evidence that there is available all the technology necessary to a planetary shift to a low carbon mode (Pacala and Socolow 2004), and the world continues to break records of greenhouse gas emission every year.9.3 Holistic Approaches toTransition andTransformationIn most cases, we tend to think of innovation as operating in the humankind-technology interface of the tryptic humankind-nature-technology. The advancement of the research on sustainability transitions shows that this is not always the case. A major review by Köhler et al. (2019) shows that technology is one among many of the ele-ments present in sociotechnical systems where-upon innovation can play a role to foster transition. Markets, consumer behaviour, culture, policies, supply chain, etc., are all part of such systems and can be the target of innovation.Impulses for radical change are confronted with the forces of stability and path dependence (Köhler et al. 2019). The innovation space in agriculture– where stability is often associated with a kind of technology that aims to achieve economic goals related to productivity– shows indications of a growing emphasis on the humankind- nature relationship, aiming for a greater balance between social, economic and environmental goals. Therefore, many of the var-ious branches of agroecology emerge as impor-tant innovations. For instance, on the scientific front, it is both inter- and transdisciplinary, including disciplines such as Agronomy, Ecology, 9.3 Holistic Approaches toTransition andTransformation74Economics and Sociology and non-academic knowledge. In the field, it has stimulated the dia-logue between scientific and traditional and incorporated social (e.g. gender and racial equal-ity, food sovereignty) and environmental (e.g. conservation of agrobiodiversity, combat to pes-ticides) movement agendas (Andrade etal. 2020). The study of Andrade etal. (2020) examined the case of syntropic agriculture as an innovative approach to sustainable farming in Brazil. The authors argued that this agroecological practice is scalable and has had an increasing adoption in the country and elsewhere. It successfully achieves productivity targets, while promoting succession and regeneration of native ecosys-tems. This pattern results from the combination of a rationale that blends scientific and traditional knowledge, apractice that resorts to no-impact or low-impact technologies, and a philosophy that perceives humankind and nature as integrated and interdependent.There is also a bias when one considers tech-nological innovation, in which the development of socially inclusive technology is not often the first option that comes to mind. Siddiqi and Collins (2017) argue that it is more common to have innovative technologies targeting increase in profit or power (that often reinforce inequali-ties) than those that address the poor or the needed. Thus, they argue that innovations of products and processes that are inclusive of the poor as either producers or consumers play an important role in overcoming exclusion. Another technological frontier for innovation, they argue, is that of design that seeks to serve the largest possible number or groups of people (e.g. the elderly, those with disabilities, etc.) to widen the user base of often unserved groups.9.4 Collective andIndividual Psychologies Using TechnologyBrazilian geographer Milton Santos (1926–2001) discussed the relationship of the technosphere and the psychosphere. The psychosphere, as he defined it, is where meaning is produced, the sphere of ideas and intersubjective action (Santos 1997). It is therefore more local than the noo-sphere concept that we saw here earlier and in Chap. 6. The psychosphere introduces both hege-monic rationality and alternative rationalities in a given territory. Alternative rationalities are a form of resistance to the hegemonic logic and to the purely instrumental or for-profit local use of the technosphere (see also Albagli 2017). This resistance emerges from given areas of the psy-chosphere, and their enhancement is of great sig-nificance. Santos– a pioneer in critical studies of globalisation– described a temporal lag for social energy to include technical objects in the ‘move-ment of life’, as he called it (Santos 1997). Scarano etal.(2024) have examined a number of dialogue-oriented civil society sustainability movements that are increasingly becoming a sig-nificant part of the ‘movement of life’ in Brazil, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps as a reflection of the horror imposed by the dis-ease and also by the political scenario in the country (2019–2022), people were increasingly looking for alternatives through dialogues that aggregate multiple views on life and sustainabil-ity. In this way, related digitalised spaces became an expression of ‘alternative rationalities’. This example seems to suggest that there is a need for extended digital capabilities, which go beyond using digital tools and critically assessing sources of information, to understanding our increasingly algorithmic society (e.g. politics, labour, housing markets), and protect attention in an information- rich world.The individual psychology of consumers (and producers) also matters as space for innovation in the use (or non-use) of technology. From urban transportation (car sharing, electric vehicles and public transport) to dietary habits (abandoning or reducing meat consumption and taking part in organic food consumer networks) to energy use (solar, efficient light bulbs and domestic machin-ery, and efficient oven for firewood combustion in rural areas)– whenever the consumer has the option– there can be positive ways of directly or indirectly using technology to sustainability tran-sition (Gioda et al. 2019; Köhler et al. 2019). Many such decisions come as a result of inner 9 How Sustainable Is theTechnosphere?75transformations related to awareness, concerns with physical health, human-nature connected-ness, activism related to consumption choices, among others (Woiwode etal. 2021), to be fur-ther explored in Chap. 12.9.5 TechnofuturesAs we move to the individual perspective, it is worth briefly introducing two concepts: transhu-manism and post-humanism. Despite the lack of agreement around their definitions, transhuman-ism is often seen as the movement or philosophy that aspires the enhancement of various human capacities (longevity, communication, cognition, etc.) through science and technology (Ferrando 2013). From the expansion of these capacities may emerge post-humans (Bostrom 2003). However, in its strictest sense, post-humanism derives from postmodernism and denies anthro-pocentrism (typical of transhumanism) to pro-pose the gradual disappearance of the frontiers that separate humans, the other species, and tech-nology (Bolter 2016). Thus, transhumanism fore-sees the possibility of humans reaching a nearly divine status, exerting control, creating life and eventually becoming immortals. Post-humanism, in turn, sees the human species with modesty and scepticism (Fuller and Lipiska 2011). One inter-esting point about post-humanism is that it denies body-mind dualism and argues for a holistic con-cept for embodied mind and life that may include technological agency and organic life (Ferrando 2013; Förster 2020). Despite these differences, both share the idea that human nature will change in coevolution with the environment, culture, and technology since it is neither fixed nor pregiven (Förster 2020). Although these topics might seem objects of science fiction literature, it can be argued that it is already happening given the tech-nological aids– some of them apparently increas-ingly indispensable and eventually inserted in our bodies– that we depend upon for memory, health, sensorial capacities, etc. Lovelock’s ‘Novacene’ may not be so far away after all. It will remain to Noosphere (planetary)- Psychospheres (territory) -BiotechnosphereTechnosphere BiosphereMatter transformed Living matterhuman / non-humanInert matterFig. 9.1 The planet (represented by the entire box) has spheres that emerge from the interaction of various mod-ules. The noosphere – a sphere of knowledge and con-sciousness – is a property that emerges from the interactions between the biosphere and technosphere, within the planetary biotechnosphere. The planet can be defined as such since the weight of the technosphere will soon be comparable to its biomass. The psychosphere is the part of the noosphere that is related to territory and, therefore, culture. The technosphere, in turn, is matter transformed and is thus an emergent property of the bio-sphere (interacting living and non-living matter). Anticipated futures of further integration of organic and tech to humans are more (transhumanism) or less (post- humanism) anthropocentric. As a footnote, inlocal territo-ries, hegemonic and alternative psychospheres dispute the technosphere, and from this dispute, distinct futures may emerge locally and/or globally9.5 Technofutures76be seen which are the implications of post- humans and transhumans for sustainability and planetary well-being, as the planet increasingly becomes a biotechnosphere (Grinevald and Rispoli 2018). Figure9.1 displays an interpreta-tion of hierarchies and interactions between com-ponents of this biotechnosphere.9.6 Final Remarks: Technosphere inDisputeThe central argument of this book is that inter-species and interpersonal dialogues will be the backbone of transitions and transformations to sustainability. This chapter shows a welcome expansion on the perception of sociotechnical innovation that now goes beyond state-of-the-art hard technologies to a broad range of processes and products, which result from inter- and trans-disciplinary dialogues.In some technology-intensive sociotechnical systems such as agriculture, there is a lot more space for innovation on the human-nature nexus than there was before, as evidenced by the expan-sion of agroecology. Inclusive design and tech-nology address the poor and the needed both for social purposes and for market expansion. The internet is increasingly a technological space where asustainability dialogue takes place even between hegemonic modern forces and resis-tance green movements. Such a diverse range of actors and interests related to technology and sociotechnical systems demand some level of governance policies, especially because human nature begins to merge with technological com-ponents, and a post-human philosophy is in place. Upcoming Chaps. 10 and 11 look into sustain-ability policy and practices and how science (Chap. 8) and technology relate to that.ReferencesAlbagli S (2017) Technical-scientific-informational milieu, networks and territories. In: Melgaço L, Prouse C (eds) Milton Santos: a pioneer in critical geography from the global south. Springer, Cham, pp 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 3- 319- 53826- 6_3Andrade D, Pasini F, Scarano FR (2020) Syntropy and innovation in agriculture. 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Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_1010Sustainability Policies andDiplomacy10.1 IntroductionSustainable development/sustainability as policy emerged from the convergence between develop-mentalist and environmentalist aspirations (Scarano 2019). These were represented by developmentalism as the hegemonic capitalist trend and by environmentalism as a social move-ment. Convergence, according to Mario Bunge (2003), is an important step towards the emer-gence of novelty. Convergence in this sense is a synonym to unification, merger, integration between perspectives, views or fields that were initially separate or even conflicting. Therefore, convergence requires what Bunge calls ‘glue’ concepts to bind together different components or modules. Sustainable development emerged precisely as a glue concept to bind developmen-talism and environmentalism.Developmentalism, in the broad sense, refers to the conventional development paradigm. It therefore includes both developmentalism (in a stricter sense, a facet of capitalism that combines state and market in a balanced way) and eco-nomic liberalism, which gives full primacy to the market (Bresser-Pereira 2017). The many cri-tiques to developmentalism include issues related to gender (Icaza and Vázquez 2016), social inequality (Hickel 2017), and the environment (Crook and Short 2020). It is interesting though that, in face of the increasing environmental awareness, especially in the twenty-first century, advocates of developmentalism argue that it ‘bet-ter serves the goals of reducing inequality and protecting the environment (than liberalism)’ (Bresser-Pereira 2017, p.681). Moreover, some evoke an integration of developmentalism with the ‘ecological view’ (Guarini and Oreiro 2022). Rather late, it appears, given that this proposal comes 50 years after the United Nations’ Conference on Human Environment (Stockholm 1972).On environmentalism, there is significant con-troversy. Some argue it is dead (Shellenberger and Nordhaus 2004; Blühdorn 2011) or that it has been co-opted by capitalism (Engel 2019), while others claim it persists (Dauvergne 2009). All recognise, however, that environmentalism moved from marginal, in its early days, to main-stream (e.g. Abidin etal. 2020), influencing pol-icy, civil society and even science, with the consolidation of conservation science. On the other hand, although streamlined in various soci-etal fronts, environmentalism always faced three major obstacles: (1) the disconnect between pop-ular perception and the concept of environment; (2) its incapacity to overcome the broader devel-opment culture of consumerism; and (3) the denial discourse (Anderson 2010). These diffi-culties turned environmentalism into a ‘zombie’ movement, to use Anderson’s (2010) analogy. He claims that, to thrive, environmentalism needs reframing and alignment with other discourses and identities and simultaneously retains its http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_10&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_1080 conventional environmentalist drive. If this shift happens, environmentalism would be a lot closer to the sustainability discourse (see also Chaps. 5 and 6). Thus, unsurprisingly, many believe that sustainability is a new regime of environmental-ism (Bothello and Djelic 2015; Sánchez García and Díez Sanz 2018).I partly disagree with this notion because sustainability– or more precisely its sustain-able development perspective – was main-streamed ‘at birth’, while environmentalism in its pure form was marginal and to some extent radical. As already seen (Chap. 7), this was so because sustainability had already emerged as a value to many. This is clearly expressed in the series of United Nations’ conventions and agreements that took the global stage since the 1970s. Multilateralism percolated sustainable development as a con-cept and practice across the planet and, in the process of doing so, it was met by local reali-ties and actors, such as governments, compa-nies, social movements and individuals, and their policies and practices. This, in turn, affected multilateralism. Next, I examine these actors within the sustainability/sustain-able development context.10.2 MultilateralismThe names of the three milestone United Nations (UN) Conferences on the theme are evidence of convergence: Human Environment (1972, Stockholm), Environment and Development (1992, Rio de Janeiro) and finally Sustainable Development (2012, Rio de Janeiro). The 1972 conference concluded that, in the face of socioecological risks, environ-mental issues and development issues should be dealt with jointly. Fifteen years later, in 1987, the Brundtland report was published, coining the term ‘sustainable development’ defined as ‘a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abil-ity of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987). It is interesting, how-ever, that despite the political aspiration to converge environmentalism and development expressed in this document, the diplomatic decision at the Rio de Janeiro conference in 1992 was to create three sectoral conventions, namely the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) (Tolefson and Gilbert 2012).It took twenty years for these conventions to converge and meet again in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. By then, 25 years had passed before a UN conference was finally named ‘Sustainable Development’, the term coined by the Brundtland Report in 1987. On this occasion, heads of states signed a document called ‘The Future We Want’ (see Griggs et al. 2013) – partly a sequel to the Brundtland report also known as ‘Our Common Future’ (WCED 1987). This process translated into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) announced by the UN in 2015, which are cov-ered in Chap. 11 (see Table 10.1 for a brief timeline of events).There is a mixture of optimism and disap-pointment with multilateralism and the global sustainability agreements. The optimist view is that sustainability diplomacy is essential for building awareness anda sustainability cul-ture; for promoting new partnerships in sci-ence, technology and financing; and to inform national and local policies. The pessimistic view is (1) that efforts so far have been ineffec-tive and trends related to greenhouse gas emis-sion, biodiversity loss and social inequity are not reverted and (2) that agreements are not inclusive of a number of actors, especially those related to so-called social, economic, gender and ethnic minorities (Tolefson and Gilbert 2012).However, the Paris Climate Agreement of the UNFCCC in 2015 brought a new ‘hybrid’ perspective to multilateralism. Kuyper et al. (2018) explain that the novelty lies mainly on two fronts. First, and unlike the previous decades of sustainability diplomacy, now there is a bottom-up approach to target setting through the nationally determined contribu-10 Sustainability Policies andDiplomacy81Table 10.1 Milestones of the process of mainstreaming sustainability/sustainable development into global policiesYear Events1950s Great acceleration begins1960s Environmentalism consolidates as a social movement1970s Early days of conservation science1972 Stockholm: UN Conference on Human Environment1987 Brundtland report: Sustainable development emerges as a concept1987 Early days of sustainability science1988 IPCC is launched1992 Rio de Janeiro: UN Conference on Environment and Development1992 Rio de Janeiro: The three UN conventions are created: climate, biodiversity and desertification1997 Kyoto protocol is signed, and developed countries are pushed to announce low-carbon goals2000 Sustainability science framework begins to consolidate2000s Sustainability spreads in governments’ manifestos and large corporations’ mission statements2007 IPCC wins Nobel peace prize2012 Rio de Janeiro: UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)2012 IPBES is announced2015 SDG announced by the United Nations as a follow-up of Rio+202015 Paris agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change2020 Outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic challenges global agreements2024 By now, all three major conventions have redesigned targets for 2030Acronyms: UN United Nations, IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SDG Sustainable Development Goals, IPBES Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Servicestions– NDCs– which are non-legally binding national commitments. Second, and comple-mentary to that, non-state actors (such as non-governmental organisations, businesses, sub-state governments and transnational net-works) are more formally evoked by two ele-ments of the agreement: the transparency framework and the global stocktake process. Mainly, non-state actors are expected to be involved in measurements, reporting and veri-fication of targets to feed into a global stock-take process on mitigation, adaptation and finance (see also Winkler et al. 2017). Moreover, in addition to effectiveness, atten-tion to justice and legitimacy in the scope of the agreement – although in need of further development– is inviting for broader non-state access, participation and agency. Similar pushes in that direction of broader dialogue and more bottom-up approaches are taking place also for the CBD (e.g. Sayer etal. 2021) and the UNCCD (Mastrojeni 2019), which altogether point out for a need in mindset shift (Wamsler etal. 2020).10.3 GovernmentsFor many countries, particularly developing ones, global commitments made in multilateral agreements are often uncoupled from national policies. Thus, there is a large variation between countries in the rate of achievement of such common goals. This has been attributed to both ambition gaps and implementation gaps (Roelfsema etal. 2020), such as those related to funding (Clark et al. 2018), science (Montoya et al. 2017), technology (Rao etal. 2019), capacity gaps (Sachs et al. 2019) and even the possible confusion created by the large number of targets to be achieved and indicators to measure them, when one adds up all conventions and global agreements (Scarano etal. 2018; Andersen etal. 2021). Understanding synergies and trade-offs between goals within a given global agreement (e.g. Di Marco etal. 2015; Pradhan et al. 2017) and between dis-tinct ones (e.g. Von Stechow et al. 2016; Le Gouvello etal. 2017) is also an important step to reduce confusion and enhance focus for pol-icy design and implementation at national and local levels.Furthermore, when multilateral sustainabil-ity agreements percolate to national, sub-national and local governments, they are often met by structures that are arranged from a sec-toral viewpoint. Economy, environment, social 10.3 Governments82welfare, health, science and technology, energy, agriculture, etc., often have their own policies and respective ministries, secretaries, etc. Since development pressures frequently outpace or outweigh socioecological concerns, outcomes of sectoral policies are in many cases unsustain-able, particularly in developing countries (Scarano etal. 2018). Addressing a single sec-toral driver of change or issue in a problem- centred approach may undermine the multiple interacting variables of complex systems. Thus, sustainability policies require either integrated, transdisciplinary analysis and design before implementation (Bennett et al. 2016) or mixes of existing policies. Policy mixes acknowledge or promote interactions and interdependencies between different (and often sectoral) policies to achieve desired outcomes (Flanagan et al. 2011). These mixes are hailed as strategic to address complex systems with multilevel and multiactor realities, such as in the case of socio-ecological and sociotechnical systems demand-ing sustainability transitions (Edmondson etal. 2019; Kern etal. 2019; Chap. 9).For instance, a sectoral policy designed to address carbon mitigation alone, even when successfully achieving this goal, typically would not consider community-level demands or bio-diversity conservation. On the other hand, whenever the goal is to simultaneously address low-carbon goals and societal vulnerability and risks related to climate change, via poverty reduction and prevention of environmental deg-radation, the policy is more likely to achieve sustainability targets. Such type of adaptation policy – whenever successfully avoiding or reducing climate risks without negatively impacting human systems and natural systems– becomes an important push for sustainability transitions (Agrawal and Lemos 2015; Pant etal. 2015; Juhola etal. 2016; Kasecker etal. 2018). This kind of policy can either be designed in an integrated fashion or can combine existing sectoral policies in a mix to achieve the desired sustainability goals. The so- called nexus approaches are emerging lines of research at the science-policy interface that arguably can favour such integrations (Liu etal. 2018).Since sustainability policies demand inte-gration or mixes for design and implementa-tion, participation and dialogue are keys to success. There is much evidence showing that partnerships and participatory deliberative pro-cesses contribute to a large class of problem-solving situations and can support successful governance for sustainability (Ernst 2019). Dialogues and partnerships are also essential to upscale local solutions into national policies and eventually into global diplomacy– often a more difficult path than the already challenging efforts to bring global commitments to the local level. There is a growing number of reported cases of policy upscaling related to ecovillages (Singh etal. 2019), data sharing (Creutzig etal. 2019) and the biocultural paradigm (Merçon etal. 2019).10.4 CompaniesThe rising awareness about climate change (IPCC 2021) and the accelerating rates of spe-cies extinctions (IPBES2019) further increase the pressure for an effective business contribu-tion to solving sustainability challenges. Recent official reports and academic studies are calling for profound transformations in how businesses relate to sustainability and nature (WEF 2020; Dasgupta 2021; IRP 2021; UNEP 2021). The European Union agreed upon and launched a Green New Deal (European Commission 2019), and similar efforts have been proposed in Brazil, China and the United States (Aguiar etal. 2023; Tagliapietra and Wolff, 2021). This is hardly surprising given that the private sector is respon-sible for 60% of the gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide (Sukhdev 2012) and 72% of the GDP of countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; Manyika etal. 2021), which implies a significant socioenvironmental footprint (Moran and Kanemoto 2017; Addison etal. 2018). Thus, corporations must be ‘ethical stewards of shared planetary resources’ rather than ‘self-interested exploiters of the commonwealth’ (Sukhdev 2012). For a given business, its locus along the 10 Sustainability Policies andDiplomacy83gradient from ‘stewards’ to ‘exploiters’ is set by the balance between environmental cost/gain vs. societal impacts that results from its action (Barkemeyer et al. 2015; Boiral and Heras-Saizarbitoria 2017). This position depends on business size, sector, history and values, and to shift its needle much innovation is required. Innovation at that scale often begins with a new business mindset before it percolates into pro-cesses and outcomes. As discussed in Chap. 9, innovation is not something that happens only in the hard-tech front but can also be significant for change in fronts such as the development of socially inclusive technology or even by the emergence of a new stand on human- nature relationships. Transformative change in the pri-vate sector requires solid policy measures com-bined with structural shifts in values and institutions (Turnhout etal. 2021). Thus, com-pliance to governmental sustainability regula-tions is no longer enough for a competitive business. Nowadays, companies must also build image and brand and respond to ever-increasing local or international demands for sustainable products since all these fronts impact mid- to long-term financial gains (Gradinaru 2014; Dragomir 2018). In the international arena, urgent reforms in trade investments and green procurement policies have been promoting fer-tile ground for sustainable businesses to flourish (Turnhout etal. 2021).The concept of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is the latest trend in business sustainability practices. Although launched nearly two decades ago by the United Nations Global Compact’s (2004) report on financial markets to a changing world, the ESG concept became a hot topic only over the last decade (Martins 2022). There are now available metrics for ESG, some of which apply to stock exchange ratings, as in the case of Brazilian B3 and its ‘S&P/B3 Brazil ESG Index’ (Amato Neto etal. 2022). Several recent studies on the relation-ships between ESG investment by companies and their financial performance show that while in developed countries there is a direct positive relationship, this is not the case for developing countries, specifically in Brazil (Garcia and Orsato 2020; Duque-Grisales and Aguilera-Caracuel 2021; but see Miralles-Quirós et al. 2018). There are also gaps to be filled, espe-cially regarding biodiversity among ESG met-rics and ratings (Doni and Johannsdottir 2020). A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC 2019) report indicated that among 1141 companies from 31 countries and across seven industry sectors, Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15 – that address biodiversity – were those of the least concern, which is an indication of low pri-ority for biodiversity assessment among ESG indicators (Schleich 2021).10.5 Social Movements, NGOs andIndividual ConsumersSocial movements are collective actions that challenge or support existing structures or authorities and promote strategies and tactics in campaigns for social change (Almeida and Chase-Dunn 2018). The ways change is pur-sued vary, from informal and spontaneous to more formally organised– such as in political parties, labour unions and non- governmentalorganisations (NGOs; Thompson and Norris 2021). Therefore, they are often self-organised and bottom- up, but not always. They often originate from dissatisfaction with the state of things on a given front (Blumer 1995), but their political inclinations vary and range from left to right (Almeida and Chase-Dunn 2018), and their reach or focus may also range from very local to transnational to global (Masuda et al. 2018). Social movements con-sistently rely on effective communication strat-egies to clarify their objectives and, as a consequence, to engage people in the cause embraced by the movement. The same applies to sustainability as social movement, in which communication is so relevant (Weder 2021), as Chaps. 15 and 16 address.Sustainability itself is perceived by some as a social movement (Sheehy and Farneti 2021), while others at least partly disagree based on the 10.5 Social Movements, NGOs andIndividual Consumers84notion that some discourses on sustainability are not really about transformative change but about adaptation of the current paradigm (Thompson and Norris 2021). Irrespective of that discussion, the fact is that organised social movement in the shape of NGOs are increas-ingly engaged with the agenda of sustainability transformation or transition (see youth sustain-ability movements in Chap. 15).NGOs are arguably a modern phenomenon: they exist since the 1800s, but there was a pro-fusion of this type of organisation especially as of the 1950s (Silva and Chennault 2017). Interestingly, both environmental and humani-tarian/development NGOs incorporated sus-tainability in their repertoire enhancing their scope to embrace both environmental and social issues (Berny and Rootes 2018; Murphy-Gregory 2018; Pascucci 2021), and thus having more similar agendas due to this convergence. However, NGOs also range from pure activism (problem- oriented) to more science– or diplo-macy oriented (solutions oriented). In the latter case, there are various grey zones that have been the target of criticisms and studies. For instance, NGO partnerships with companies or governments are hailed by some as important for legitimacy, innovation and positive results (Berrone et al. 2017; Lambin and Thorlakson 2018) and by others as greenwashing or inef-fective in promoting transformation (Robinson 2012; Ruiz-Blanco et al. 2022). Competitive relationships between transnational and national NGOs can also be challenging (Dinerstein etal. 2007; Rodriguez etal. 2007), as in some cases are the collaborations between academia and NGOs (Scarano and Martinelli 2010; Vohland and Nadim 2015).Individuals – faced by so many layers of institutions, organisations and regulations – might feel powerless when it comes to their own sustainability behaviour. Of course, vot-ing has potentially a direct impact on govern-mental attitude towards sustainability, and so does activism in social movements. However, a third front, on a more domestic, individual level, that can also be effective is that of con-sumption. Sustainable consumption is related to the demand-side of the market, can poten-tially impact production by the private sector and demands governmental regulation and incentives (Schröder et al. 2019; Mak and Terryn 2020). Based on the premise that sus-tainable consumption is an important driver of sustainable production, Lim (2017) distin-guishes three approaches. Responsible con-sumption refers to translating social, environmental and ethical concerns into per-sonal consumption choices. Anti-consumptionis about rejecting, abandoning or avoiding spe-cific consumption practices or products. Finally, mindful consumption is about full con-sciousness and awareness of consumption choices. Clearly, all three are strongly interre-lated. A mindful consumer would typically address a set of questions before acquiring a given product: Is it cyclic? Is it solar? Is it safe? Is it social? Is it environmental? Is it effi-cient? These questions may pertain both to an impact-oriented or an intent-oriented approach to sustainable consumption but are more often addressed in a fragmented rather than in col-lective fashion by distinct consumers (Geiger etal. 2018).10.6 The Science-Policy InterfaceThe knowledge transfer between science and society is promoted by boundary organisations (Gustafsson and Lidskog 2018). These can be of various types, but the United Nations’ (UN) scientific panels are among the most well known. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations (IPCC) was created in 1988, four years before the cli-mate convention was sanctioned, and sup-ported it with periodic assessment reports ever since. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Interface on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was established much later in 2012. Before it appeared, the biodiversity 10 Sustainability Policies andDiplomacy85convention was informed scientifically by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA). The respec-tive UN Conventions, therefore, are the most immediate users of IPCC and IPBES (Compagnon and Kramer 2016), before it per-colates to national and local, public, private and individual decision- making (Tinch et al. 2018). To facilitate societal comprehension of the main messages that emerge from the assess-ment reports and special reports produced by these panels, the documents are summarised in the so-called Summary for Policy- Makers (Carraro et al. 2015). Both size and language are expected to be user-friendly and accessible to non-academics, although the final result in terms of clarity has often been criticised (Barkemeyer etal. 2016).Since IPBES was conceived two decades after the IPCC, it aimed to circumvent some of the caveats peculiar to the latter. For instance, the stakeholder engagement strategy of IPBES is more inclusive of non-academic views than the IPCC (Vohland and Nadim 2015; Tengö etal. 2017). However, and perhaps as a result of this approach, there have been internal quar-rels and accusations of ideological control (Masood 2018). Irrespective, the fact is that governments have veto power over statements in the assessments of both IPCC and IPBES, whenever they disagree that a given scientific evidence is strong enough (Vardy etal. 2017). Brazil has, since 2015, what is probably the only case in the world of an independent scien-tific panel for biodiversity, partially designed in the model of IPBES (and called ‘BPBES’, Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). It produces national and thematic assessment reports that combine con-sultation to and engagement of multiple actors, as well as concerns with communication to non-expert audiences. It sees itself as a bound-ary organisation that connects various aca-demic and non-academic organisations within a ‘boundary chain’ at the science-policy inter-face (Scarano etal. 2019; Fig.10.1). Boundary chains emerge from the engagement of two or more boundary organisations that have already developed trust-based relationships with poten-tial users of scientific information (Lemos etal. 2012). Challenges to BPBES include how to avoid fatigue typical of extensive participa-tory processes, how to deal with the issue of representativeness of stakeholders selected, and long- term fundraising strategy (Scarano etal. 2019).10.7 Final RemarksPolicy is about transformation: it is the means that allow us to reach the desired effects. Ideally, therefore, this ‘desire’ needs agree-ment between different parties. Since sustain-ability is a concept (or non-concept) in dispute (see Chap. 1), derived policies often suffer when these dialogues are not inclusive and comprehensive enough. This difficulty can per-haps partly explain why, despite all scientific advancement (Chap. 8), transition to sustain-ability is still arguably in its early days, since society continually breaks annual records of greenhouse gas emissions and of species decline and extinction. To be ready to use for transformation, science must be credible, rele-vant and legitimate (Chap. 8). In order to be legitimate, it requires that those who will be affected by the projected transformation also desire it and, furthermore, see themselves as part of the solution. Next, in Chap. 11, we will see how this dialogue is flowing (or not) in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the current modern utopia.10.7 Final Remarks86Fig. 10.1 Examples of boundary chains created by BPBES (Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). Stakeholders related to distinct knowledge systems and decision-makers in the policy arena in dialogue with boundary organisations acting in chain: (a) the case of the first assessment report; (b) spe-cial report on pollination; (c) special report on biodiver-sity and climate change. Acronyms: ILK indigenous and local knowledge, NGOs: REBIPPBrazilian Network of Plant-Pollinator Interaction, FGB Fundação Grupo Boticário, FBDS Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development, Academia: PBMC Brazilian Panel on Climate Change. (Extracted from Scarano etal. 2019)10 Sustainability Policies andDiplomacy87ReferencesAbidin C, Brockington D, Goodman MK, Mostafanezhad M, Richey LA (2020) The tropes of celebrity environmentalism. Annu Rev Environ Resour 45:1.1–1.24. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev- environ- 012320- 081703Addison PFE, Bull JW, Milner-Gulland EJ (2018) Using conservation science to advance corporate biodiversity accountability. 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The logic of the SDG is strictly modern, since it has as one of its premises that economic growth is necessary for sustainability. Post-development alternatives to the SDG have emerged and some of them have their own set of objectives, goals and les-sons. By comparing them, it appears that the SDG has major gaps related to cultural diversity and to the inner dimensions of sustainability. The chapter explores the potential for synergies between development and post- development worldviews.Part III, Deepening Sustainability, has five chapters that aggregate world-views that are not often addressed or engaged by the modern sustainability agenda. Chapter 12, ‘The Inner Turn: Sustainability, Religion and Spirituality’, starts from the notion that reason and scientificity alone do not deliver the transformations that science itself has been demonstrating to be necessary for planetary wellbeing. Thus, there is a pressing need for shifts in mindset, beliefs and values. However, the modern sustainability agenda, as framed by the SDG, fails to be inclusive of personal inner dimensions. Spirituality, whether or not grounded in religious affiliation, is one such dimensions. Given the regained power spirituality in present days, it is a potential driver of sustainability transition. Examples of ongoing dialogues between reli-gions, mindfulness and animism with the SDG process are hopeful evidences of convergence between modern and non-modern attitudes and visions. Chapter 13, ‘Ancestral Sustainability’, examines how ancestral peoples’ worldviews relate to the concept of sustainability, in particular, to the SDG.Many differences between ancestral and modern views start at the con-trasting perspective these peoples have about human-nature relationships. PrefacexviThus, here the concepts of biocultural diversity and relational values are approached as keys to understand equivalent notions of sustainability for ancestral peoples. Cases are examined, as well as gaps in the SDG in relation to ancestral aspirations and the need for dialogues that better incorporate this diversity of perspectives. Chapter 14, ‘Arts, Culture and the Sustainability Imaginary’, examine artistic practices that intentionally or unintentionally express sustainability notions, information and/or feelings. They are greatly increasing, which is to be expected since sustainability transition requires cultural transformation– although the Sustainable Development Goals under-play the role of culture. This chapter’s central question is how do arts and culture turn sustainability accessible as a theme. It concludes with the notion that if the sustainability imaginary is not evoked by the work of art, inner transformations that result in social action that target sustainability are less likely to occur. Chapter 15, ‘Sustainable Youth’, examines the attitudes of young people in relation to sustainability. There is evidence of as much engagement of the youth in the sustainability cause, as there is of disengage-ment. First, the chapter discusses youth expression of dissent with unsustain-able politics and power, which ranges from global– as in the case of climate activism Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future – to local reach, including examples of indigenous and rural youth movements. Secondly, it overviews cases of youth disengagement in relation to sustainability issues, examining possible triggers, while discussing how awareness can be expanded. The chapter reflects on the extent to which current youth sustainability move-ments are aligned with future visions and expectations of young people, by discussing sustainability imaginaries. Finally, a parallel is made between movements, future visions and the approach of the Sustainable Development Goals to children and the youth. Chapter 16, ‘Sustainable Outreach: Communication, Education and Digital Technologies’, addresses the out-reach and communication of sustainability from the perspectives of digital technology, formal and informal education. It discusses successes and chal-lenges of these processes in increasing awareness and driving behaviour, starting from the notion that communication can be about, of and/or for sus-tainability. When these various elements are confronted with the SDG, some contradictions emerge.Part IV, Sustainable Futures, is divided into two conclusive chapters. Chapter 17, ‘Regeneration: Merging, Hybridising, or Simply Coexisting’, builds on the three previous parts of the book and on Mario Bunge’s emer-gence theory to propose that further convergence is needed between modern/non-modern worldviews, scientific/non-scientific knowledge, nature/culture, human/nature/technology for the planet to fully embark on a sustainability trajectory. Regeneration involves convergence and can take place through mergers, hybridisation or simply coexistence, and the argument is that a dia-lectic process is prerequisite for the emergence of a deeper sustainability and planetary wellbeing. Finally, Chap. 18, ‘Deep Sustainability Utopia’, synthe-sises some of the key messages of the book by addressing sustainability as utopia. Not as some kind of blueprint utopia, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, but as a compass, as a persistent mentality that synthe-sises past, present and future. Utopias are not about ‘what works’, but they Prefacexviiare about radical alterity, about transcending the world as we know it, and about confronting common sense. This same type of utopia however builds on the praxis of anticipation and regeneration that are driven by hope, while hope is also fuelled by these very attitudes. This sustainable future this book envisages, however, is not a ‘good place’ but a ‘non-place’, since it is actually an orientation only. It is, therefore, work in progress, unfinished, as indeed are concepts, the universe, ourselves, and any engaging, creative dialogue.Rio de Janeiro, Brazil FabioRubioScarano PrefacexixNietzsche said that, in the writing process, the writer incorporates not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his or her friends. A book, therefore, is the result of dialogues. For a book that has ‘Dialogues’ in its title, this is a key starting point. The fact that I am a single author in this volume may seem contradictory with this principle, so please allow me to explain. I felt driven to write about things I have learnt from a multiplicity of dialogues, and learn-ing is often personal. It is one’s own synthesis of his or her relationship with people from the past, present and future. But we also relate to, engage with and learn from non-human friends: landscapes, plants, animals, institutions, the arts– everything. It is also to dialogue with your inner self: writing these lines often felt as if I was trying to explain to myself what a whole life of conversations has taught me. Other times, it seemed as if I was having a relaxed chat with friends. There were moments when I saw myself in the classroom, occasionally as a teacher, but more often as a student (this is a distinction that has always been blurred to me, anyway). In other occasions, I was transported to places, I revisited dreams, I re-experienced the sensorial world of my childhood. I even felt a paradoxical nostalgia of the future. As you can judge from these opening remarks, my list of acknowledgements could possibly become another book by itself. I promise not to impose that on you, kind reader, and limit myself to thank those who helped me directly dur-ing the production of the book.Prof. Ulrich Lüttge, mentor and friend, kindly wrote the Foreword to this book and revised the whole text in much detail. Thanks for that and fordocs/issues_doc%2FFinancial_markets%2Fwho_cares_who_wins.pdf. Accessed 3 Aug 2022Vardy M, Oppenheimer M, Dubash NK, O’Reilly J, Jamieson D (2017) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: challenges and opportunities. Annu Rev Environ Resour 42:55–75. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev- environ- 102016- 061053Vohland K, Nadim T (2015) Ensuring the success of IPBES: between interface, market place and parlia-ment. Philos Trans R Soc B 370:20140012. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0012Von Stechow C, Minx JC, Riahi K, Jewell J, McCollum DL, Callaghan MW, Bertram C, Luderer G, Baiocchi G (2016) 2°C and SDGs: united they stand, divided they fall? Environ Res Lett 11:034022. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748- 9326/11/3/034022Wamsler C, Schäpke N, Fraude C, Stasiak D, Bruhn T, Lawrence M, Schroeder H, Mundaca L (2020) Enabling new mindsets and transformative skills for negotiating and activating climate action: lessons from UNFCCC conferences of the parties. Environ Sci Pol 112:227–235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.06.00510 Sustainability Policies andDiplomacyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01602-xhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01602-xhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0352-9https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0352-9https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2017.12.002https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2017.12.002https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01476-9https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_3https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06128-9_3https://doi.org/10.4322/natcon.00801002https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108227https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108227https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115965https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115965https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1882https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1882https://doi.org/10.1038/486027ahttps://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00736-2https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00736-2https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.12.005https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.12.005https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1155-1https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1155-1https://doi.org/10.1038/486020ahttps://doi.org/10.1038/486020ahttps://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12805https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12805https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-naturehttps://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-naturehttps://d306pr3pise04h.cloudfront.net/docs/issues_doc/Financial_markets/who_cares_who_wins.pdfhttps://d306pr3pise04h.cloudfront.net/docs/issues_doc/Financial_markets/who_cares_who_wins.pdfhttps://d306pr3pise04h.cloudfront.net/docs/issues_doc/Financial_markets/who_cares_who_wins.pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-061053https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-061053https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0012https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0012https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034022https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034022https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.06.005https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.06.00591WCED – World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, OxfordWeder F (2021) Sustainability as master frame of the future? Potency and limits of sustainability as nor-mative framework in corporate, political and NGO communication. In: Weder F, Krainer L, Karmasin M (eds) The sustainability communication reader. Springer, Wiesbaden, pp 103–119. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 3- 658- 31883- 3_7WEF (2020) The future of nature and business. World Economic Forum, GenevaWinkler H, Mantlana B, Letete T (2017) Transparency of action and support in the Paris agreement. Clim Pol 17:853. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2017.1302918Referenceshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31883-3_7https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31883-3_7https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2017.1302918https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2017.130291893© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 F. R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_1111Sustainable Development Goals: Can Capitalism Change?11.1 IntroductionThis chapter approaches the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) announced by the United Nations in 2015 as the latest modern uto-pia. There is academic agreement around the notion that utopias should preferably be open, mutable and voluntary, rather than being dogmat-ically programmed. In other words, utopias should hopefully emerge as a ‘discourse of vol-untary sociability’ to avoid taking dystopic turns (Claeys 2013). There is therefore a distinction between such open utopias and ‘blueprint’ uto-pias (in Bregman’s 2017 language). The latter projects a specific kind of future with immutable rules. It is therefore a sort of ‘official recipe’ for the future (Scarano 2019).In the case of the SDG – 17 objectives that comprise 169 goals– some see them as a road-map or a blueprint framed within the modern capitalist paradigm, for taking economic growth (SDG #8) as a premise for sustainable develop-ment. This is somewhat contradictory since the economic drive is precisely what has led the planet into the Anthropocene (Holden etal. 2017; Reid etal. 2017; Nature Editorial 2020; see also previous chapters of this book). In this perspec-tive, the SDG would just extend the realities and hegemonies of the present, as Macauley (1996) claims to be the case of blueprint utopias. Others, more optimistically, see the SDG as a toolbox rather than as a roadmap, and that a closer science- policy dialogue could help foster its achievement (see Costanza etal. 2016; Stafford- Smith etal. 2017; Halvorsen 2017). Either way, the SDG are the aspirational outcome of more than 30years of global sustainability diplomacy (Chap. 10). They combine biosphere, social and economic goals and therefore are framed within the logic of the three pillars of sustainability (see also Chap. 1). Despite criticisms, they have suc-cessfully percolated as discourse and as metrics to many of the various actors engaged in the sustainable development agenda (Halkos and Gkampoura 2021; Chap. 10).The main goal of this chapter (and of the whole book) is to provide a reflection on the potential need of a shift in the conversation about the currently predominant sustainability utopia. Can global society move from a dialogue that projects a future bound by modern, capitalist premises to a more open and inclusive conversa-tion that unlocks other possible sustainable futures? This second option is more likely to lead humans and non-humans into a truly ‘common future’ (Bregman 2017). Interestingly, ‘Our com-mon future’ is the name of the 1987 report that defined sustainable development and ‘The Future We Want’ is the document signed by heads of state at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, 2012, in Rio de Janeiro– which would become the backbone of the SDG. Who are the subjects who aspire this common future?http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_11&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_119411.2 Walk theTalk?Table 11.1 examines the speed of change and ten-dencies of the societal indicators ‘dialogue’, ‘behaviour’, ‘communication’ and ‘livelihoods’. As quali– or quantitative proxies, I used global political agreements for dialogue; carbon emis-sion and deforestation rates in the tropics for behaviour; internet access for communication; and poverty, inequality, hunger and access to potable water for livelihoods. The table shows that while global diplomacy involving sustainable development, climate and biodiversity advanced and the setting of goals took place, carbon emis-sion rose steadily, and deforestation in the tropics decreased slowly. In the same period, internet access increased tremendously. Poverty declined steeply, and access to food and clean water improved only slightly. Inequality remains very high (despite slight30 years of teachings and great times investigating together the curious lives of many Brazilian plants. My colleagues, friends, and students at the Graduate Training Programs in Ecology (UFRJ), Environmental Sciences and Conservation (UFRJ) and Sustainability Science (PUC-RJ), for support and exchange of ideas. Special thanks are due to my students in these various courses, with whom I discussed and tested– in a Platonic dialectic fashion– many of the ideas discussed in this book. These students have actually been teachers to me. Beatriz Lima Rangel Carneiro and Silvia Mansur de Oliveira kindly revised and provided important contributions to Chaps. 11 and 16, respectively. Prof. Anna Carolina Fornero Aguiar has revised Chap. 3 and, along with Profs. Alexandro Solórzano, Francisco Esteves and Laísa Freire, shared the classroom with me in many occasions. Furthermore, many of the (non-) concepts addressed in this book, were also discussed with Profs. Reinaldo Bozelli, Vinícius Farjalla, Deia dos Santos and the whole team at Acknowledgementsxxthe Limnology Lab, at UFRJ.Prof. Aliny P.F. Pires, at UERJ, has kindly inspired, draft and revised figures and also revised chapters. Prof. José Maria Cardoso da Silva, at the University of Miami, has also provided some great insights and conversations. Prof. Luiz Guilherme Vergara (UFF) has taught me a great deal about utopias. With Dr. Ebba Brink, Lund Center for Sustainability Science (LUCSUS), I have had inspiring exchanges on inner (and outer) sustainability. Thank you all for your partnership, teachings and understanding of my more than frequent absences.This book has been written within the scope of the UNESCO Chair on Futures Literacy – Planetary Wellbeing and Regenerative Anticipation – hosted by the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro. The Museum is a cultural equipment of the City of Rio, managed by Instituto de Desenvolvimento e Gestão (IDG). The Chair emerged as a partnership between the museum, IDG, UFRJ (the Futures Programme of the School of Higher Studies and the Institute of Biology), the Museum of Tomorrow International (MOTI), and is kindly supported by Humanize Institute, Porticus Foundation, Volvo, and EY.I thank them for trusting in me to be the person to lead this amazing proj-ect. I am most thankful to my dear friends Ricardo Piquet and his IDG super team: Daniela Alfonsi, Daniel Bruch,Isabella Carneiro, Natália Cunha,João Falcão,Luciana Felix, Julianna Guimarães, Sergio Mendes, Simone Rovigati, and Cristiano Vasconcelos. Bruna Baffa and Andrea Lombardi, at Museum of Tomorrow, as with Raul Correia-Smith and Ana Paula Teixeira at MOTI, were constant sources of inspiration. Ana Célia Castro and Rodrigo Soares Moura Neto, at UFRJ, and Georgia Pessoa, Tatiana Fauza and Eline Martins, at Humanize, are all-time partners and friends. Alexandre Fernandes, at BMW Foundation, has been a driving force behind all that. Denise Pires de Carvalho, Carlos Frederico Leão Rocha (former Rectors) and Roberto Medronho (current Rector of UFRJ) provided full support to this Chair, and so did our friends at UNESCO Brazil, Marlova Jovchelovitch-Noleto and Fabio Eon. The teams that make the Chair function will always be very dear to my heart: by thanking Amarílis, Anna Carolina, Beatriz, Camila(s), Duda(s), Elaine,Fabíola,Luana, Luís, Marina, Mariana(s), Nailanna,Nina, Pavão, Renata, Susana, Tatiana and Vitória- to name but a few -, I thank all the IDG team.I would also like to thank my friends at Selvagem Ciclo de Estudos (Dantes Editora), Fé no Clima project (Instituto de Estudos da Religião-ISER), Instituto Livmundi, Project ‘Artes, Ciências, Espiritualidades’ (UFF) and Ernesto Neto and his crew, for the opportunity they give me to learn from indigenous peoples, religious groups and artists. Last, but definitely not least, big thanks also to family– in its broadest sense– and friends.Acknowledgementsxxi 1 Dialectic as a Therapy Against the Modern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.4 Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.5 Final Remarks: Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Part I Nature Across Times 2 Anima Mundi: Nature and Philosophy in Ancient Greece . . . . . 11 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2 Pre-socratic Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.3 Socrates, Plato, and the Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.4 Aristotle, Theophrastus and Natural History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.5 ‘Greens’ and Goddesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.6 Final Remarks: Contradictions and Disputes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3 Saints, Witches and Poets: Nature and Religion in the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.2 Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.3 Witches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.4 Poetry and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.5 Final Remarks: Contradictions and Disputes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 4 Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans . . . . . . . . . 27 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 4.2 Modern Science Rises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 4.3 The Age of Discoveries for Some, and Invasions for Others . . 29 4.4 Empiricism and Liberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 4.5 Final Remarks: Contradictions and Disputes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Contentsxxii 5 The Modern Divorce Between Nature and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . 35 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 5.2 Naturphilosophie: I and Not-I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 5.3 Phenomenology: Intuition and Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 5.4 Environmentalists and Radical Ecologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.5 Naturalists and Scientists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 5.6 Final Remarks: Great Acceleration, Great Contradiction . . . . 41References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6 Postmodern or Postnormal? Are We Farther or Closer to Nature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.2 Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 6.3 Gaia: From AncientGreece to Postmodern Theory to Postnormal Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6.4 Ecosophy: Regenerating Gaia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 6.5 Final Remarks: Towards Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Part II Sustainability Emerges 7 Sustainability as a Moral Value Requires New Ethics . . . . . . . . . 55 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 7.2 Sustainability as Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 7.3 Sustainability Ethics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7.4 Final Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 8 Sustainability Science or Sciences? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 8.2 Disputes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 8.2.1 The Substantialist View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 8.2.2 The Relational View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 8.3 Convergence of a Postnormal Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 8.4 Final Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 9 How Sustainable Is the Technosphere? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 9.2 How Novel Is Our View on Innovation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 9.3 Holistic Approaches to Transition and Transformation . . . . . . 73 9.4 Collective and Individual Psychologies Using Technology . . . 74 9.5 Technofutures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 9.6 Final Remarks: Technosphere in Dispute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 10 Sustainability Policies and Diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 10.2 Multilateralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 10.3 Governments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 10.4 Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Contentsxxiii 10.5 Social Movements, NGOs and Individual Consumers . . . . . 83 10.6 The Science-Policy Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 10.7 Final Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 11 Sustainable Development Goals: Can Capitalism Change? . . . . 93 11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 11.2 Walk the Talk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 11.3 How Are the SDGs Doing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 11.4 Post-development Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 11.5 Can There Be Dialogues Between Future Visions? . . . . . . . . 99 11.6 Final Remarks: Towards a More Inclusive Sustainability . . . 99References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Part III Deepening Sustainability 12 The Inner Turn: Sustainability, Religion and Spirituality . . . . . 105 12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 12.2 Sustainability, Sacredness and Enchantment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 12.3 Religious Spirituality and Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 12.4 Non-religious Spirituality and Sustainability. . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 12.5 Homo Sapiens, Religiosus or Spiritualis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 12.6 Final Remarks: The Spirit of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 13 Ancestral Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 13.2 Biocultural Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 13.3 Learning and Applying Ancestral Sustainable Practices . . . . 115 13.4 Ancestral Sustainability and the SDG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 13.5 Final Remarks: Dialogue Readiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 14 Arts, Culture and the Sustainability Imaginary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 14.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 14.2 Compromise Between Knowing and Feeling, the Real and the Imaginary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 14.3 Experiencing Sustainability Through the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 14.4 Final Remarks: Art and the Crave for Transcendence . . . . . . 126References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 15 Sustainable Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 15.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 15.2 Youth Sustainability Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 15.3 Youth: From Biophilia to Disengagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 15.4 Youth Futures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 15.5 Final Remarks: Youth and the SDG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Contentsxxiv 16 Sustainable Outreach: Communication, Education and Digital Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 16.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 16.2 Formal Education: Schools and Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 16.3 Informal Education: Museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 16.4 Digital Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . 139 16.5 Final Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Part IV Sustainable Futures 17 Regeneration: Merging, Hybridising or Simply Coexisting? . . . 149 17.1 Introduction: Regeneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 17.2 Regeneration as a Step Towards Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 17.2.1 Defying Divergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 17.2.2 Modes of Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 17.2.3 Converging Space and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15317.3 Final Remarks: Regeneration as Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . 154References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 18 Deep Sustainability Utopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 18.1 Introduction: Utopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 18.2 Regeneration and the Sustainability Utopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 18.3 Regeneration, Anticipation and Utopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 18.4 Hope, Types of Anticipation and Utopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 18.5 Final Remarks: Conclusion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Contents1© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 F. R. Scarano, Regenerative Dialogues for Sustainable Futures, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_11Dialectic asaTherapy Against theModern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Crises1.1 IntroductionModern society often trusts that words, language and especially concepts can ‘touch’ reality. German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920–1996) thought otherwise. For him, ‘the human relation to reality is indirect, circumstantial, delayed, selective, and above all “metaphorical”’ (Blumenberg 1971, p.187). This would be related to the fact that, according to him, concepts ‘have something to do with the absence of their object’, or ‘with the lack of completed representation of the object’ (Blumenberg 1975, p. 255). Thus, concepts are work in progress, transitional stages, rather than the fulfilment of the intentions of rea-son. As a consequence, Blumenberg continues, ‘the consummation of a concept interferes or even inhibits the claims of reason’ and therefore ‘concepts must possess enough indeterminacy in order to still grasp approaching experiences’ (Blumenberg 1975, p.257).Blumenberg’s Theory of Non-Conceptuality (1975) emerges from these principles and is very much aligned with Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) notions about concepts and time. He said that one should free oneself from concepts to regain con-sciousness about reality. Fluid, open concepts are more capable to deal with the future. He argued that ‘the eternity of the future’ (or of time) is opposed to ‘the eternity of the concept’ (Bergson 1901–1902/2019; p.22). And future– or, more broadly, time– is also of the essence to the argu-ment of this book. Time as ‘duration’, as Bergson liked to address it, presupposes continuity. However, according to Italian philosopher Paolo Rossi (1923–2013), modern science practice, with its supposed forward, innovative outlook, is about forgetting history (Rossi 1991/2010). Forgetfulness has negative implications derived from ruptured continuity and has also been a theme for Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), as will be discussed in Chap. 2 (Heidegger 1927/2012).But what exactly are moderns forgetting? They/we are forgetting a lot of their/our own European past values and ideas, but also most of the non-European, non-modern worldviews and experiences. This is not absence of knowledge, but forgetfulness or neglect, an ignorance that is often culturally and politically induced (Schiebinger 2004). The study of this kind of ignorance is what science historian Robert Proctor (1954–) refers to as ‘agnotology’ (Proctor 2008), another key approach adopted in this book: to heal the malaises caused by the multiple planetary crises, we must remember our ances-tors so as to produce ancestral futures. ‘Ancestral future’ is the very title of a book by Brazilian indigenous leader and philosopher, Ailton Krenak (1953–), another major inspiration for this book (Krenak 2022).My thesis is that both to remember and to get another grip on reality, we need a multiactor and multispecies global dialogue, in a dialectic pro-cess in the Platonic sense: a therapy to the soul http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_1&domain=pdfhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51841-6_12that leads to knowledge, overcoming pathologi-cal ignorance (Stephens 1993). My central argu-ment, here and across the book, is that to overcome harmful ignorance, society must resort to dialogues that approach the three key concepts for this millennium – nature, sustainability and future– with enough openness to learn from new experiences and remember old ones, even if and when differences emerge. These three concepts (or non-concepts) are in dispute. Unlike the rec-ommendations of Bergson and Blumenberg, they have acquired very narrow hegemonic definitions by modern society, which at least partly explain the current planetary crises. Hegemony, accord-ing to Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), entails the politics and the production of knowledge that corroborates the worldview of those in power (Gramsci 1932). Assuming that it is a hegemonic power that has in recent years driven the planet into its current stage of multiple crises, such hegemony must be revisited and challenged, I propose, in a Platonic dialectic style.This book revisits the history (both the official and the silenced), the philosophy, the science, the policy and the practice around these three con-cepts to claim that, as planetary society, we need to approach them more openly (as ‘non- concepts’), which in turn demands dialogues. I agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) that ‘what can be said at all, can be said clearly’ (Wittgenstein 1921, p. 34). Can we do so for nature, sustainability and future? To approach them, it requires openness to the extent of eventu-ally evoking other words and metaphors, particu-larly since the original concepts have been abducted by hegemonic views. Gaia, regenera-tion and futures (in plural) frequently stand out as metaphors for the three mentioned concepts, whenever one wants to signal broader views than the hegemonic one. Thus, they appear frequently across this book and are also introduced in this chapter.1.2 NatureIn his vast oeuvre, Bruno Latour (1947–2022) argues that nature has become ‘the other’ to mod-ern humans (Latour 2004, 2017, 2018). Thus, in a broader sense, the word ‘nature’ would refer to everything non-human, while in a stricter sense, it would refer to other species, ecosystems and the four elements. However, when one looks at the etymology of the word ‘nature’, this is hardly the case.Ducarme et al. (2020) surveyed 76 primary languages spoken by nearly 7 billion people and found 20 morphemes (or etymological roots) that belonged to four types: languages with their own word to express ‘nature’, languages that borrow the word from another language, languages in which there is no equivalent to the word ‘nature’, and languages in which the word ‘nature’ meant ‘world’. A close look at the etymological mean-ings in languages spoken by most people on Earth (Table1.1) reveals that it more often per-tains to processes present in both human and non- human beings (e.g. birth, growth, reproduction, character) and to the whole (world, unity, order). The latter case is actually the most common (12 Table 1.1 Modern, hegemonic meaning vs. some etymo-logical meanings of the word nature, based on a study of 76 different languages (adapted from Ducarme et al. 2020)NatureModern, hegemonic meaningEverything non-human, the other (other species, etc.)Languages spoken by~6 billion peopleEtymological meaningsLatin and Latin- influenced languagesAbstract phenomenon of birthChinese, Japanese, Korean, VietnameseSpontaneityNorth Indian languages Proliferation, continued growthUrdu/Punjabi andrelated Muslim Indian languagesPower, regularity, orderSlavic languages Reproduction, generationSemitic, Muslim- influenced Altaic and Iranian languagesOriginal mark, characterOther selected languagesEtymological meaningsKiswahili and Malay languagesWorldFinnish Inner powerArmenian Original unityMongolian Property of the wholeAmerindian and Polynesian languagesNo word equivalent to nature1 Dialectic asaTherapy Against theModern Ignorance That Produces Planetary Crises3morphemes). Coscieme etal. (2020), in parallel, used another method to examine the word ‘nature’ in 60 distinct languages and found slightly different results from Ducarme et al. (2020). They grouped their findings into three clusters: those in which humans are viewed as an integral part of nature, those in which humans are separate, and those in which nature has a God- like, spiritual dimension. However, regardless of the differences between these two sets of results, it is relevant that the modern, hegemonic mean-ing attribute to the word ‘nature’ refers to one part of the whole, namely the non-humans.Nevertheless, hegemonies are by no means unanimities, not even in modern settings. Stålhammar and Brink (2020) found a variety of perceptions of nature among the community of a ‘favela’ (analogous to ‘slums’) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, many of which suggested a connectedness of the interviewees with nature, related to tradi-tional livelihoods, faith, culture, leisure, citizen-ship, among others. This biocultural diversity seemed quite surprising given that favelas are often associated with environmental degradation and disaster risk. It seems we have forgotten the historical meaning of nature across the planet, as much as we have neglected local notions about what nature is– as Heidegger, Rossi and Proctor would have expected.Latour (2018) argues that the hegemonic view of nature as something non-human is true to the extent that the word ‘nature’ is no longer useful to address politically how to deal with the global planetary crises and that we should, instead, aim for a ‘Politics of Gaia’. Gaia– the ancient Greek Goddess of the Earth (see Chap. 2) and also the name of a theory postulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis about life’s self-regulatory capacity and the interdependence and intercon-nectivity of all life on Earth (see Chap. 6)– thus stands as a metaphor for life as unity and whole-ness. Latour is probably right after all if one con-siders that some of the people who live the most in harmony with ‘nature’ – such as the Amerindians and the original peoples from the Pacific Islands– have no equivalent to the word ‘nature’ in their languages (Table1.1). Part I of this book (from Chaps. 2 through to 6), Nature Across Times, examines how this separation between humans and nature has happened and its consequences.1.3 SustainabilityUntil 2007, there were estimates that accounted for some 300 definitions of ‘sustainability’ and of ‘sustainable development’ (Johnston etal. 2007). These two concepts have different histories (Table1.2), but now they are often used as syn-onyms (Salas-Zapata etal. 2017). The apparent conceptual confusion around them has inspired scholarly attempts to narrow them down to more precise meanings (Salas-Zapata and Ortiz-Muñoz 2019; Ruggerio 2021).However, ‘sustainability’ became of common usage. It appears in governmental documents, in policies of large corporations, in a vast quantity of scientific publications and in various initia-tives across civil society (Bettencourt and Kaur 2011). In parallel, it often also comes associated to ‘green washing’ rhetoric (Saha and Darnton 2005; Robinson 2012) and to scepticism of con-sumers regarding green or sustainable labels (Leonidou and Skarmeas 2017). I have previ-ously argued (Scarano 2019b) that use and mis-use to this extent indicate that sustainability became a value (see also Chap. 7), since it is fre-quently used to try to convince people about the quality of a given product or action. Ramsey (2015) argues that this conceptual confusion is no reason to abandon the term ‘sustainability’, but instead to not attempt to define it, which is some-what aligned to Blumenberg’s theory of non-conceptuality.Moreover, the concepts of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ have further con-verged with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the UN General Assembly in 2015 and, to some extent, further entrenched them (Purvis etal. 2019). The SDG alignment with the triple bottom line (social, eco-nomic and environmental sustainability) has often been perceived as non-inclusive (Virtanen etal. 2020), since its premise of economic growth remains exclusively modern (Nature Editorial 1.3 Sustainability4Table 1.2 Brief history of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development (largely based on Purvis etal. 2019)Period NotionLate seventeenth/early eighteenth centuryConcept of sustainable yield in forestry, in response to resource declineLate eighteenth/early nineteenth centuryEarly classic economists (Smith, Ricardo, Malthus) questioned the limits of economic and populational growthLate nineteenth /early twentieth centuryNaturalists and ecologists dispute nature conservation for its own sake or for ensuring sustainable offer of resources1972 Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth’ argues for a ‘world system… that is sustainable’1972–1975 The editors of The Ecologist, the world Council of Churches and the (British) ecology party argued for the creation of a ‘sustainable society’1972–1978 The notion of Eco-development emerges at the United Nations (UN) Conference in Stockholm 1972 and evolved towards Ignacy Sachs definition of 1978: ‘an approach to development aimed at harmonising social and economic objectives with ecologically sound management, in a spirit of solidarity with future generations’1985–1987 ‘Sustainable development’ appears as a term in some scientific publications and becomes established by the ‘Brundtland report’, the UN ‘Our Common Future’ report: ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’Since 1992 ‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ are mainstreamed into UN global conventions, largely based on the ‘three-pillar paradigm’: The balance between social, economic and environmental pillars(continued)Table 1.2 (continued)Period NotionAt present Perceived by many as an antidote to the malaises of the Anthropocene and operationalised by the SDG (Garren and Brinkmann 2018), by others as a platform for legitimising globalised neoliberal policy (Tulloch 2013), and still by others as non-inclusive of non-modern worldviews (Virtanen etal. 2020)2020). The recent appearance of the Objectives of Living Well (Buen Vivir, Hidalgo-Capitán et al. 2019), of the Inner Development Goals (Kemp and Edwards 2022) and of national level, sectoral reinterpretations (as in the case of Brazil, for Education; Cabral and Gehre 2020) I perceive less as pièces de resistance and more as attempts to provoke open dialogues with a forgetful United Nations.What does one actually ‘listen’, when hearing or reading the word sustainability? Sustainability of the planet and all life forms that live on it? Sustainability of the hegemonic lifestyle irre-spective of how others feel about it? Sustainability of our species, regardless of others? Do the SDG aspirations intend to ‘sustain’ capitalism or the planet? (see also Chap. 11). In the face of such controversies and disputes, ‘regeneration’ and ‘planetary well-being’ emerge as current and competing metaphors for the term ‘sustainabil-ity’ (Scarano 2019a; Gibbons 2020; Kortetmäki etal. 2021; Poelina etal. 2022): regeneration as process and planetary