In the essays contained in the anthology “Keine Gesellschaft ohne Natur – Beiträge zur Entwicklung der Sozialen Ökologie” (No Society without Nature – Essays on the Development of Social Ecology) Egon Becker is addressing the critical relations between society and nature and the question of what kind of science could empirically describe these processes as well as reflect and critically assess them. While there are established theories and models for physical and chemical processes – from the thermodynamics of irreversible processes to the more recent complexity theory – research and explanatory models for the relation patterns of society and nature are scientifically controversial.
Since the 1980s, Egon Becker has been dealing with the question of which philosophic ideas, theoretic terms and normative orientations can contribute to understand the critical change and stagnation processes within organic nature and human society. And he even went one step further: which options for action will be the result and how can the complex relations between man, society and nature be theoretically grasped and practically dealt with? Based on these questions, Becker’s texts are pointing out potential paths into the program and practice of social ecology as a novel critical science of societal relations to nature which the author has significantly contributed to.
During his scientific career, Egon Becker, co-founder of the ISOE – Institute for social-ecological Research in Frankfurt am Main, consistently joined together the natural and social scientific perspective on the “question of nature” as it newly arose in the 1980s. “If issues are located at the threshold of nature and society both perspectives are needed”, says Becker. It has therefore been one of his important scientific political and academic issues to overcome the disciplinary barriers at universities. As a physicist and social scientist Egon Becker has personally experienced the disciplinary barriers as limits of knowledge. With his views on a new science and on fundamentally changed research he has for decades been intervening within the science process.
Crisis and criticism of the sciences: Against the disciplinary order at universities
Natural sciences are not describing and recording nature as such but the relation between the measuring and calculating human and nature. “This means a breach with the classic understanding of nature as well as with the traditional scientific ideal of objectivity”, concludes Becker. “The categorical separation of nature and culture thus dissolves within the scientific process and the disciplinary order of universities becomes brittle and antiquated.” Up to now this has been a matter of strong dispute.
Whoever as a scientist or political intellectual enters such controversies “takes almost without fail societal disputes onto scientific territory which can cause strong defense reactions there”, as Thomas Kluge writes in his foreword. He goes on to say that from his critical perspective Egon Becker entered the transdisciplinary field of research which was controversial at first but then became recognized far beyond the boarders of sustainability research. With his theoretical and practical approaches for this new problem orientated type of research Becker contributed to let the established relation between science, politics, experts and lay people, theory and practice appear to be questionable.
The selected essays from the period between 1980 and 2012 with respective introductional texts by sociologist Thomas Kluge do not only grant insights into the intellectual development of the author as one of “founding fathers” of Social Ecology. They also depict the scientific state of debate and the political-intellectual climate of its period of origin. The texts also show which questions have up to now not been sufficiently answered. “Therefore, they are recommendable reading for the ever growing community of social-ecological research”, says Kluge. But also readers who are interested in sustainability research, environmental sociology and the theory of science will find far reaching ideas, theses and arguments of a philosophically proficient scientist.
About Egon Becker
Egon Becker was born in 1936. He is a physicist and social scientist. Until 1971 he worked in the field of theoretical solid state physics at the Technical University, Darmstadt, Yale-University and Goethe-University in Frankfurt. From 1972 until his retirement in 2000 he was professor for scientific and university research at Goethe-University. He also was visiting professor in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City and Klagenfurt. He is co-founder of the ISOE – Institute for social-ecological Research where he is working on the methodology of Social Ecology, societal relations to nature, complexity and systems research.
Egon Becker (2016): Keine Gesellschaft ohne Natur – Beiträge zur Entwicklung der Sozialen Ökologie. Campus Verlag Frankfurt/New York. ISBN 978-3-593-39647-7
Review copies can be obtained directly from the publisher, E-Mail: presse(at)campus.de