GIVING A “FACE” TO NATURE: PHENOMENOLOGICAL-EXISTENTIAL RESPONSE TO A CRISIS

Abstract

The article starts with the question: is there any positive aspect arising from the current climate calamities?
The answer is positive, since such calamities can awaken us to our (in)humanity. We are called to responsibility in the face of the environmental crisis to the extent that we are ashamed of our arbitrariness and our complicity in so many murders in broad daylight. Murder of people (among them, those who are part of the original peoples, whose situation makes those most sensitive to the problem cry and despair) and of nature itself. We are, in some way, waking up to the fact that, no matter how dependent we are on nature, it presents itself to us as radical otherness. In addition to Levinas’ contributions, Jaspers’ existential philosophy helps to elucidate this thesis. Nature is as enigmatic as our existence. She is a kind of cipher of transcendence, provoking in us fear, restlessness and love for life.