'Doğayı’ kurtarmak için onu öldür: Rousseaucu ikilem ve ekolojik kuram

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 52 Sayı: 1, 29 - 44, 30.06.2025

Ömür Birler

Öz

Bu çalışma, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’nun düşüncesi ile ekolojik kuram arasındaki karmaşık ilişkiyi, felsefesinin etrafında döndüğü eksen olan yabancılaşma kavramını öne çıkararak çözümlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Ekoloji literatürünün büyük bir kısmı, Rousseau’nun araçsal akılcılığa karşı çıkışı, merhamet vurgusu ve toprak etiğine verdiği destek gibi unsurlarda kendini gösteren doğaya yönelik ahlaki saygısını ön plana çıkarmaktadır. Ancak bu tür yorumlar, onun ahlaki yazılarını çoğu zaman siyasi ve ekonomik felsefesinin daha geniş bağlamından yalıtarak ele alır. Bu durum, Rousseau’nun düşüncesine içkin olan paradoksların gözden kaçırılması riskini doğurmaktadır. Bu çalışma, doğal yabancılaşmadan siyasal yabancılaşmaya geçiş sürecini takip ederek, Rousseau’nun insanlığın doğadan kopuşuna yönelik çözümünün aslında daha derin bir yabancılaşmayı (biçimsel, kasıtlı ve kurumsallaşmış) içerdiğini öne sürmektedir. Her ne kadar bu ikinci yabancılaşma özgürlük ya da erdemin yeniden inşasını mümkün kılsa da bunu ancak insanlık ile doğa arasındaki organik bağın koparılması pahasına gerçekleştirir. Sonuç olarak, Rousseau doğa ile ahlaki bir birlik kurma gerekliliği ile vatandaşlık yaşamının siyasal zorunlulukları arasında derin ve çözümlenmemiş bir gerilim ortaya koyar.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Ekolojik kuram , Yabancılaşma , Doğa

Kill ‘nature’ in order to save it: The Rousseauian dichotomy and ecological theory

Öz

This study seeks to unravel the intricate relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thought and ecological theory by foregrounding the concept of alienation as the central axis around which his philosophy turns. While much of the ecological literature emphasizes Rousseau’s moral reverence for nature—manifest in his opposition to instrumental rationality, his emphasis on pity, and his advocacy of a land ethic—such interpretations often isolate his moral writings from the broader context of his political and economic philosophy. In doing so, they risk overlooking the inherent paradoxes embedded in Rousseau’s work. By tracing the transition from natural to political alienation, this study argues that Rousseau’s remedy to humanity’s estrangement from nature involves an even deeper alienation—one that is formal, intentional, and institutionalized. This second alienation may indeed enable the reconstitution of freedom or virtue, but only at the cost of severing the organic bond between humankind and the natural world. Consequently, Rousseau presents a profound and unresolved tension between the moral necessity of unity with nature and the political imperatives of civic life.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Ecological Theory , Alienation , Nature

Etik Beyan

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Kaynakça

• References ARENDT, H. (2006), On Revolution, New York: Penguin Books.
• BATE, J. (1991), Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition, London: Routledge.
• BELLAMY, R. (2016), “Which Republicanism, Whose Freedom?” Political Theory, 44 (5): 669-678.
• BERLIN, I. (2002), Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• BLOOM, A. (1978), “The Education of Democratic Man: Emile”, Daedalus, 107 (3): 135-153.
• BOONIN-VAIL, D. (1993), “The Vegetarian Savage: Rousseau’s Critique of Meat Eating”, Environmental Ethics, 15 (1): 75-84.
• CASSIRER, E. (1954), The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, New York: Columbia University Press.
• DE DIJN, A. (2015), “Rousseau and Republicanism”, Political Theory, 46 (1): 59-80.
• DENEYS-TUNNEY, A. (2016), “Rousseau and Technology: The Invention of a New Ecological Paradigm”, in Rousseau Between Nature and Culture: Philosophy, Culture, and Politics, Eds. A. Deneys-Tunney and Y. C. Zarka, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp: 57-65.
• HOROWITZ, A. (1987), Rousseau, Nature, and History, Toronto: Toronto University Press.
• LAFRENIERE, G. (1991), “Rousseau and the European Roots of Environmentalism”, Environmental History Review, 4: 41-72.
• LANE, J. H and CLARK, R. R. (2006), “The Solitary Walker in the Political World: The Paradoxes of Rousseau and Deep Ecology”, Political Theory, 34 (1): 62-94.
• LANE, J. H. (2014), “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Disentangling of Green Paradoxes”, in Engaging Nature: Environmentalism and the Political Theory Canon, Eds. P. Cannavo and J. H. Lane, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp: 133-152.
• NISBET, R. A. (1943), “Rousseau and Totalitarianism”, Journal of Politics, 5 (2): 93-114.
• PETTIT, P. (2013), “Two Republican Traditions”, in Republican Democracy: Liberty, Law, and Politics, Eds. A. Niederberger and P. Schink, Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, pp: 169-204.
• PLOOF, R. A. (2023), “‘A Fruit of Every Clime?’ Rousseau’s Environmental Politics”, Contemporary Political Theory, 22 (3): 307-329.
• ROUSSEAU, J. J. (1979), Emile, Trans. A. Bloom, New York: Basic Books.
• ROUSSEAU, J. J. (1992), “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse)”, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Eds. R. D. Masters and C. Kelly, Hanover: University Press of New England, vol: 3, pp: 1-95.
• ROUSSEAU, J. J. (1994), “On the Social Contract” in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Eds. R. D. Masters and C. Kelly, Hanover: University Press of New England, vol: 4, pp: 129-267.
• ROUSSEAU, J. J. (2000a), “The Reveries of the Solitary Walker”, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Eds. R. D. Masters and C. Kelly, Hanover: University Press of New England, vol: 8, pp: 1-90.
• ROUSSEAU, J. J. (2000b), “Botanical Writings”, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Eds. R. D. Masters and C. Kelly, Hanover: University Press of New England, vol: 8, pp: 91-255.
• SALKEVER, S. G. (1977), “Interpreting Rousseau’s Paradoxes”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 11 (2): 204-226.
• SCHNEIDER, M. (1978), Jean-Jacques Rousseau et l’Espoir Ecologiste, Paris: Pygmalion.
• SHKLAR, J. (1969), Man and Citizen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• SINGER, K. W. (1991), Rousseau and Modern Environmentalism (unpublished master’s thesis), Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
• TALMON, J. L. (1970), Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, New York: Norton Library.
• TODOROV, T. (2001), Frail Happiness, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.
• TRACHTENBERG, Z. (2019), “Rousseau and Environmentalism”, in The Rousseauian Mind, Eds. E. Grace and C. Kelly, London: Routledge.
• VANDERHEIDEN, S. (2002), “Rousseau, Cronon, and the Wilderness Idea”, Environmental Ethics, 24 (2):169-188.