THE CONSTRUCTION OF ECOLOGICAL BELONGING IN HANNAH ARENDT’S PHILOSOPHY HANNAH ARENDT’İN FELSEFESİNDE EKOLOJİK AİDİYETİN KURULUŞU
Moment Dergi, cilt.12, sa.2, ss.309-338, 2026 (Scopus, TRDizin)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 12 Sayı: 2
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.17572/mj2025.2.309-338
- Dergi Adı: Moment Dergi
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.309-338
- Anahtar Kelimeler: action, Ecological belonging, Hannah Arendt, nature, world and earth distinction
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study examines whether Hannah Arendt's philosophy contains an ecological idea. According to Arendt, with the modern era, humanity’s distancing from both the earth and the common world signifies both a political and an existential rupture. Technological developments, scientific advances, and subsequently the totalitarianism that emerged during this period brought about a significant change in humanity’s approach to the environment in which it lives. The effects of this change can be observed in humanity’s withdrawal from the public sphere and in individuals trapped in the production–consumption cycle. Arendt, who criticized modern science for objectifying nature and making it “understandable” through mathematical and experimental analysis, did not directly address the destruction of nature in her discussions. For Arendt, protecting nature—which is not a subject of the political sphere and action—is important only insofar as it serves to protect the human artifice. Yet this protection does not indicate a utilitarian attitude based on consumption of nature, but rather a form of loving care. Despite the anthropocentric tendency in her thought, this article asks how Arendt can contribute to the notion of ecological belonging, understood as individuals or groups perceiving themselves as part of the ecological whole. The article discusses the idea that Arendt’s philosophy proposes a political ground that seeks to preserve the boundaries of the human condition, rather than a type of anthropocentrism that reflects a wholly instrumentalized idea of nature. To this end, her thoughts are examined in relation to the idea of ecological belonging and the contributions they can make to it, based on a conceptual framework including concepts such as world–earth, responsibility, animal laborans, rootlessness, and worldlessness. Based on Arendt’s definition of political responsibility, which gains meaning through the individual’s action in the public sphere, the discussion focuses on how this could contribute to strengthening ecological belonging. Accordingly, it is argued that Arendt’s philosophy maintains a distance from both dominant anthropocentric thinking and radical biocentrism, while occupying a tense position between these two extremes. Arendt’s concepts and ecological belonging mutually expand each other, providing a fertile ground for reflecting on today’s ecological crises. Thus, her philosophy is evaluated as an original stance that sustains the centrality of humans without absolutizing it, and that does not view nature as a subject but also does not instrumentalize it.