Organizing nature Sex, philosophy and the biological

Contemporary understandings of nature, or what is ‘natural’, are increasingly subject to debate in our bio-technological age. In this article, I argue that ideas about nature and biology bear a largely unacknowledged relation to normative ideas about sex in western science and philosophy. By examini...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhilosophy & social criticism Vol. 35; no. 7; pp. 823 - 840
Main Author Garlick, Steve
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2009
Sage Publications
Subjects
Biology
Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge
Gender
Heterosexuality
Kant, Immanuel
Nature
Philosophy
Sex
heterosexuality
Immanuel Kant
biology
gender
nature
sex
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Summary:Contemporary understandings of nature, or what is ‘natural’, are increasingly subject to debate in our bio-technological age. In this article, I argue that ideas about nature and biology bear a largely unacknowledged relation to normative ideas about sex in western science and philosophy. By examining the concepts of nature and sex in the writings of prominent 18th-century thinkers such as Kant, Rousseau, Burke and Linnaeus, I try to show that in response to the withdrawal, absence or ‘death’ of God that characterizes the Enlightenment worldview, the desire to control sexual expression emerges as a key feature of scientific, aesthetic and philosophical systems of knowledge. Moreover, this desire shapes the concept of nature in such a way that it becomes amenable to the specifically 19th-century figuration of modern biological science.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
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ISSN:0191-4537
1461-734X
DOI:10.1177/0191453709106243