The Struggle for Recognition of Nature: A Biomimetic Approach

Abstract

In this paper I argue that “mimicking” entities of the natural world is an apt mode of recognizing nature in the sense that it satisfies the inherent ethical implications of environmental and ecological justice when performed adequately. The philosophical concept of biomimicry—i.e., the emulation of models, systems, and elements of nature—and the concept of recognition that I derive from social recognition theory, offer such adequate mode for recognizing nature when both concepts are taken together and give rise to what I claim to be a theory of biomimetic-recognition. I demonstrate that by uniting or amalgamating these freestanding philosophical concepts within the context of the non-human or natural world, their conceptual virtues and vices rule out discrepancy because they are complementary. The theory and insight that stems from their conjunction is initially an altered version of both concepts and constitute the rudiments of a biomimetic-recognition concept that has the ambition to give nature their due. I claim that the biomimetic-recognition approach is both a mode for recognizing nature and kind of recognizing nature; biomimicry offers a way to meet the demands of environmental and ecological justice, and corresponds with a kind of recognizing relevant features, namely based on a notion of talent. I develop the rudiments of the theory of biomimetic-recognition by first scrutinizing both concepts before I turn to my analysis of the conjunction that I present as a theoretical model.