ABSTRACT
In Part 1, I said more than once that what counts as ‘nature’ is not given in nature, just as the particular meanings we attach to things so categorised aren’t natural either. The previous chapter evidenced these arguments with reference to three extended examples, which together covered a range of ways in which we’ve come to know nature and its collateral referents. In this chapter, I want to focus on something I left rather implicit in the previous one: namely, the process of deciding where to draw the lines between phenomena considered to be natural, and those that aren’t. I’ll examine how semantic divides are enforced and sometimes challenged. Even though the organising distinctions of Western thought listed in Figure 1.5 have been with us for many generations, we’re constantly confronted with new situations in which we must determine when, where and how to best utilise them. By questioning the ontological solidity of these distinctions, and their usual contexts of use, we come to see that we are bound by them only to the extent that we collectively allow ourselves to be. We see too the role that various epistemic workers play in acts of mental and practical ‘border enforcement’, even as others intentionally try to remove, reposition or render more permeable the dividing line between ‘nature’ and ‘not nature’.
