Henry Dicks

Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 | Université Jean Moulin · IrPhiL - Institut de Recherches Philosophiques de Lyon (EA 4187)

The philosophy of biomimicry, I argue, consists of four main areas of inquiry. The first, which has already been explored by Freya Mathews (2011), concerns the “deep” question of what Nature ultimately is. The second, third, and fourth areas correspond to the three basic principles of biomimicry as laid out by Janine Benyus (1997). “Nature as model...

According to the renowned biomimicry specialist, Janine Benyus, biomimicry offers a new way of valuing nature based on the principle of learning from nature. Comparing and contrasting this new way of valuing nature with the dominant conception of nature as valuable for the ecosystem services it provides, an articulation of the respective theoretica...

The idea of applying biomimicry to cities is attracting increasing attention as a way of achieving sustainability. Undoubtedly the most frequently evoked natural model in this context is the forest, though it has not yet been investigated with any great scientific rigour. To overcome this lacuna, we provide: first, a justification of the model of t...

Modernity is founded on the belief that the world we build is a human invention, not a part of nature. The ecological consequences of this idea have been catastrophic. We have laid waste to natural ecosystems, replacing them with fundamentally unsustainable human designs. With time running out to address the environmental crises we have caused, our...

Imitating nature is an ever more popular strategy in many fields of science and engineering research, from ecological engineering to artificial intelligence. But while biomimetics and related fields have recently attracted increased attention from philosophers, there has been relatively little engagement with what I suggest we see as their basic ep...

There are many reasons one might wish to see a greater presence of the “wild” in the city, ranging from the benefits it might have for the physical and spiritual well-being of urban citizens to the celebration of urban biodiversity as an end in itself. But simply to list a variety of reasons to do something is very different from constructing a the...

The ground is a natural grand system; it is composed of myriad constituents that aggregate to form several geologic and biogenic systems. These systems operate independently and interplay harmoniously via important networked structures over multiple spatial and temporal scales. This paper presents arguments and derivations couched by the authors, t...

Ecological restoration poses a number of important ethical questions. Is it ever acceptable to destroy an ecosystem if one agrees to restore it later? Does pristine, wild nature have a value that restored nature does not? Who should be the primary beneficiary of restoration: the ecosystem or its human stakeholders? And can restoration give rise to...

Environmental epistemology is at present a rather marginal branch of environmental philosophy. The aim of the present article is to propose a major new approach to environmental epistemology, which I propose to call “biomimetic epistemology,” the guiding principle of which is “nature as mentor,” and which, in keeping with this principle, takes as i...

this is the introduction to a special issue of environmental values on the philosophy of biomimicry

This article argues that by the time of the Groupe des Dix’s dissolution in 1976, at least some of its members had departed significantly from the intellectual framework inherited from America’s Cybernetics Group. Focusing on two key publications of 1977, Edgar Morin’s La méthode, tome 1 : la nature de la nature and Michel Serres’s La naissance de...

This article analyses the philosophical status and ground of biomimicry's most distinctive principle: nature as measure. Starting with the argument that this principle is ethically normative, I go on to compare the ecological ethic it embodies with Aldo Leopold's land ethic. In so doing, I argue that the ultimate measure against which the ethical r...

Despite the recent growth of philosophical interest in biomimicry, little attention has thus far been paid to epistemological issues. The key thesis advanced in this article is that the principle of taking "nature as mentor" gives biomimicry a distinct epistemology-biomimetic epistemology-that may be contrasted with traditional epistemology as foll...

In recent years biomimicry has emerged as a powerful response to the problem of sustainability and today exerts an important influence on both architecture and urbanism. The implications of this trend for the humanities have, however, been largely overlooked. Taking a historical approach, the first key argument of this article is that throughout We...

While the contemporary biomimicry movement is associated primarily with the idea of taking Nature as model for technological innovation, it also contains a normative or ethical principle—Nature as measure—that may be treated in relative isolation from the better known principle of Nature as model. Drawing on discussions of the principle of Nature a...

The Ancient Greeks understood both art and technology (techne) as imitation (mimesis) of Nature (physis). This article argues that the rapidly growing ecological innovation strategy known as biomimicry makes it possible for technology to leave behind the modern goal of “mastering and possessing” Nature and instead to rediscover the initial vocation...

Cet article propose une analyse historique et épistémologique de la problématique d’un « nouveau paradigme » pour l’hydrologie urbaine. A partir d’une étude de diverses visions de ce nouveau paradigme [Todd et Todd, 1993 ; Narcy, 2004 ; Novotny et Brown, 2007 ; Andrieu et al., 2010 ; Chocat, 2013], nous dégageons trois éléments qui semblent faire p...

Ivan Illich and Jamie Linton have both argued that our current technological relation to water constitutes an abstraction. Developing this insight in the context of phenomenology, I draw on Michel Haar's French translation of Gestell-the essence of technology, according to Heidegger-as 'consommation' (consumption), to put forward a criticism of the...

This book is both an excellent introduction to Bourdieu's thought and a useful reference point for his key concepts, each of which is explained by a leading Bourdieu scholar. The first section deals with Bourdieu's biography, from his humble upbringings in Denguin (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) to his later status as a committed public intellectual. Highli...