Merchant’s Paridigms of Nature and Use of Reason

Carolyn Merchant’s The Death of Nature is a compelling study of how shifting views of nature have influenced human thought and action throughout the centuries in Europe. She argues that an organic cosmology was eventually supplanted by a mechanistic model of nature sometime between 1500 and 1700. She suggests that to understand this paradigm shift one needs to adopt an ecological perspective. By this she means taking “…an earth’s-eye view of history.” (P 42) With this change in perspective “historical change becomes ecological change, emphasizing human impact on the system as a whole…. Instead of dichotomizing nature and culture as a structural dualism, it sees natural and cultural subsystems in dynamic interaction.” (P 43) Merchant sees the historical subjugation of women in European society as tightly intertwined with this shift, as ‘natural’ concepts of nature-as-woman were replaced by mechanistic models which tacitly gave ‘permission’ to control and exploit natural (and feminine!) resources. Nature was no longer seen as a vital living organism, but rather, as a clockwork mechanism whose parts can be interchanged at will and ad infinitum: this is what constitutes Merchant’s ‘death of nature.’ Concomitant with this change was a change in the concept of self “…as a rational master of the passions housed in a machinelike body…[rather than] as an integral part of a close-knit harmony of organic parts united to the cosmos and society.” (P 214)

 

For all her criticism of science’s mechanistic views of our world, Merchant’s book has a tone of scientific authority throughout. She presents a homogeneous, compelling and seemingly irrefutable argument. Her extensive research and painstakingly precise arguments present a very linear, progressive narrative throughout and by association projects that linearity onto Western European history. She seems to adopt, consciously or otherwise, a Cartesian form of deductive reason and explanation. She posits premises, makes a mathematically logical argument and then comes to conclusions. In doing this she presents models or paradigms either explicitly or implicitly. She uses the very methods of those she criticizes to undermine their positions (this isn’t a criticism on my part!) which brings to the foreground the deeply constitutive nature of models or world views. 

 

This method of argumentation, while effective in its relentless linearity, leaves some assumptions unsaid. Implied in her view point (and in common with Descartes etc.) is that what isn’t rationally knowable isn’t knowable at all. More aggressively put, one could say that what isn’t rationally knowable doesn’t constitute knowledge in any way. Anything outside of this mathematically mechanistic rationality becomes either wholly subjective, and therefore considered valueless for humankind, or is ascribed to ‘the divine,’ in which case it becomes unassailable. The subjective becomes marginalized. The human perspective through perception and the subjective is devalued in this model. 

 

At the same time Merchant uses metaphor and imagery throughout the book. Metaphor is very effectively and transparently used, although often on further reflection it seems that metaphor leads the argument in an insidious way. An example where Merchant’s use of metaphor seems to be a stretch occurs on page 171 where she states:

Here, in bold sexual imagery, is the key feature of the modern experimental method-constraint of nature in the laboratory, dissection by hand and mind, and the penetration of hidden secrets-language still used today in praising a scientist’s ‘hard facts,’ penetrating mind,’ or the ‘thrust of his argument.’ The constraints against penetration in Natura’s lament over her torn garments of modesty have been turned into sanctions in language that legitimates the exploitation and ‘rape’ of nature for human good.

Interesting use of imagery! It does smack somewhat though, of adolescent word play and doesn’t (at least for me) constitute much of an argument or any form of legitimation at all. 

 

From even this one example it is clear that Merchant values her imagination and uses it effectively in developing her arguments. Imagination and reason seem more closely allied than she and Descartes et al would likely be willing to admit. 

 

So how rational is reason? There seems to be a strong component of irrationality in not only Merchant’s arguments but all those she cites and all of the texts we’ve been reading during this course as well. Emotions and hunches seem to figure prominently in all of these thinkers’ writings. The leaps of logic required to generate thought that is genuinely new seems to be an intrinsic part of the thinking process: reason and emotion seem very tightly integrated. 

 

There are intimations of value throughout the book and these ideas as well. There seems to be no value ascribed to something unless it is clearly practical: that there is a clearly defined use-value. This is a very utilitarian view of value, but seems to be dominant in our society. To a large degree many see uncultivated nature as having no value. There have been numerous proposals to dump garbage and toxic wastes in the ‘wasteland’ of our deserts and polar ice-caps. Because these areas aren’t amenable to cultivation and human habitation they’re seen as being useless for anything but dumping waste materials. 

 

So, are there other value systems and are they as important (as valuable) as use-value? I have no immediate answers to this, but it seems a question worth pursuing.

 

 

Explore posts in the same categories: Descartes, Emotion, Imagination, Knowledge, Logic, LS801 The Limits of Concepts and Reason, Merchant, Carolyn, Nature, Reason, Science, Selfhood, Subjectivity