Title: We comprehend that which comprehends us: an exploration of hermeneutic Gaia

Authors: Adam Eaton Croft

Addresses: The Nova Project, 2410 East Cherry Street, Seattle, WA 98122, USA

Abstract: Gaia Theory recognises the tightly-coupled system of life and its environment from which emerges the self regulation of the living Earth. The fledgling science of the hermeneutic Earth reinterprets these cyclical relations of life and the environment as meaningful expressions of our living, self-interpreting, self creating Earth. This hermeneutic interpretation of Gaia Theory explores the meaningful wholeness of the living Earth, a wholeness that arises in the coherent relations of its constituent parts. Practicing a science of the hermeneutic Gaia offers a novel understanding of the potential field of ethical interaction with the living Earth. Qualities such as meaning and agency, once accepted as peculiarly human and thereby privileging human moral status, are now integral to the science of a language-based Earth.

Keywords: hermeneutic interpretation; Gaia theory; environmental ethics; holistic science; earth science; meaning; ambiguity; wholeness; mechanistic science; reductionism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2007.017944

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2007 Vol.2 No.3/4, pp.340 - 355

Published online: 24 Apr 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article