In the 21st century, a number of developments are challenging the dualisms of modernity. The very existence of the conceptual pairs that characterize anthropocentric modernity is being called into question by various technological and ecological changes and crises. It is no longer clear where the boundaries between nature and culture, human and non-human, artificial and natural lie. In the face of this great uncertainty, we need to rethink fundamental questions such as what the social order is. It is no exaggeration to say that we need to recreate our worlds on a planet where the very foundations of life are being called into question. The conference at the Ludovika University of Public Service sought to answer the question of how we can create a social order that fits into the natural and cosmic whole. In other words, as the main claim of the organizers was that the question of the natural order is more relevant than ever in a time when the disintegration of previous systems may be coming within reach as a result of the destabilization of the Earth System.

On 4 April 2025, the Molnár Tamás Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences organized a conference in the John Lukacs Lounge of the Ludovika Wing Building to discuss the interdisciplinary developments of the 21st century, which are blurring the boundaries between nature and society, natural and artificial, and their impact on the basic conditions of life.

The conference began with introductory remarks by the organizers, Zoltán Pető and Ádám Lovász, who highlighted the topicality of the subject. The philosophical interpretation of the concept of nature is always a topical and eternal problem. Faced with the ecological crisis, which has become increasingly threatening since the turn of the millennium, the problem under examination has a real significance, so it is particularly important to ensure the possibility of dialogue between different points of view.

The speakers in the first session, chaired by Milán Pap (NKE EJKK MTKI), approached the concept of nature from the discursive perspectives of political philosophy, the history of ideas and natural law. Head of the Institute for Political and Public Theory at the NKE EJKK Ferenc Hörcher presented the views of the recently deceased British conservative thinker Sir Roger Scruton on ecology. In his Green Philosophy, Scruton described human society’s relationship with nature in terms of stewardship, which implies that the natural environment is not our property, but our stewardship, because we are responsible for it and must pass it on to future generations in good condition. Nature should not be treated merely as a resource to be exploited, but with an attitude of pietas, which can be described in terms of religious piety, and which includes the duty to care for the natural environment. Scruton links this to the notion of oikophilia, which expresses the importance of local attachment and is closely linked to the moral imperative to preserve and pass on heritage. Hörcher argues that the only hope in the face of today’s escalating global destruction of nature is ‘love of place’.

Johanna Fröhlich (NKE EJKK PÁK), in her lecture entitled Caring for Human Nature, considered the possibilities of approaching the problem under discussion within the conceptual framework of natural law. One of the key concepts in her project on the philosophy of law of motherhood is care, which has not yet developed a coherent philosophical approach. Contemporary analytic Anglo-Saxon natural law thought offers the possibility of separating the conceptions of humanity that underlie interpretations of care, linking individual and community choices, and linking philosophy of law and general philosophy. This line of enquiry, using a framework rooted in the Aristotelian tradition, can show the limits of the autonomy-based approach prevalent in contemporary legal thought, drawing attention to the importance of the aspects of interconnectedness and conditioned necessity, a framework that can also be used in the protection of nature.

Attila Károly Molnár (NKE EJKK MTKI), in his lecture entitled The Concept of Nature and the Postmodern, pointed out the characteristics of two opposing concepts of nature that can be reconstructed in the background of the green movements that politicize the concept of nature. The scientistic concept of nature, based on the results of science, calls for immediate radical changes to save the endangered Earth, while the postmodern, poststructuralist concept of nature implies that the relationship to nature is a human construct that can be freely reconstructed, the most extreme form being Judith Butler’s gender theory, which denies the existence of biological sex. In a postmodern horizon, any reference to natural determination is nothing more than essentialism to maintain oppressive structures. According to Attila Károly Molnár, the green movement, which combines a postmodern critique of science with the fact of global warming caused by the greenhouse effect, which is postulated on the basis of natural science, is characterized by ‘incoherent intellectual imperialism’, because, despite the contradictory nature of their intellectual background, they believe that they are in exclusive possession of the truth that can save the world, which they want to enforce by gaining political power. The green movement is, in fact, an umbrella organization, capable of uniting a wide range of tendencies in mobilizing for radical change. They use two mobilization strategies: on the one hand, they postmodernistically and deconstructively proclaim that man can be emancipated from his biological limits, and on the other hand, they also use scientistic alarmism based on the concept of nature, and climate catastrophe alarmism, as a central part of their communication. Although the post-modern concept of nature, which denies the existence of objective reality, obviously weakens the scientistic argument, the vast majority of the movement’s supporters, according to Attila Károly Molnár, are hardly bothered by it.

The first speaker of the second panel, moderated by Zoltán Pető, András Lányi (ELTE TÁTK), under the title The ups and downs of ecophilosophy, explained his thesis that ecophilosophy as a separate discipline does not exist, since the related investigations ultimately come back to the big questions of modern European thought. He argued that the only truly ecological issue is the ecological crisis, to which there are many different responses, and that the key to a solution would be to reconcile them. Referring to the theory of Erazim Kohak, Lányi explained that it is not concepts but different experiences that are in dispute, and that the historical changes in the relationship of human communities to nature can be traced back to such different experiences. According to Husserl, man does not have an environment, but a world. According to Lányi, no ethics can be derived from the facts of nature, and the laws and order of nature do not provide guidance for man. Following Hans Jonas, he stressed the need for an ethical response and called attention to the importance of experiencing responsibility towards future generations. By relating the vulnerability of the moral universe, of the existence of the good, to the ethical responsibility that we have towards our existence, as expressed in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, manifested through the face of the other human being, he suggested the possibility of extending this moral imperative of responsibility to other living beings, or to nature as a whole. Lányi argued that man’s most important task, following Heidegger, was to give Being a voice.

The next speaker, Péter Bence Marosán (Institute of Philosophy, ELTE BTK), examined the eco-ethical implications of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl was concerned with the problem of ethics throughout his life, according to whom experience underpins our thoughts and values, which are also accessible through experience. Value theory in the axiological sense is not the same as ethics, since there are also non-ethical value judgements. Husserl, in his old age, criticized modern rationality, which disregards the qualitative character of things and can therefore lead to disaster. Erazim Kohak’s ecophilosophical interpretation also draws much from Husserl through the notion of intersubjectivity, according to which the same life is embodied in every subject. According to Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, the essential dimension of reality is subjectivity itself, whose individual manifestations he identified with the concept of monads, which goes back to Leibniz. There are animal, vegetable and even cellular monads. It follows that every living thing has a certain degree of value. Among them, in contrast to Max Scheler, Husserl argues that no clear hierarchy of values can be established, and that there are conflicts that cannot be resolved. In ethical terms, Husserl argued that life should be respected, not treated as a mere means, and that our decisions should seek to minimize the harm caused, bearing in mind the moral imperative to respect human and non-human life.

‘Life should be respected, not treated as a mere means’

Ádám Lovász (Batthyány Lajos Foundation, Institute of Philosophy, ELTE BTK) considered different aspects of the possibility of natural philosophy in his presentation, arguing against the postmodern pragmatist view of Richard Rorty, according to which no human discourse can provide true representations of the world, only those that are useful on the basis of practice. Rorty denies that there are any necessary truths, that only conventional beliefs based on dialogue are possible, and ultimately comes to the point of abandoning philosophy, since philosophy is, at best, a therapy that has nothing relevant to say about politics and science, including the ecological crisis. According to Ádám Lovász, this approach is untenable, and postmodern linguistic centricity must be overcome. His own proposal for doing so is an ongoing research that links Alfred North Whitehead’s (1861–1947) theory of being with the conservative political philosophy of Leo Strauss (1899–1973). Both thinkers were Platonists, a common ground, but Whitehead did not develop a political philosophy; he was concerned with religious, theological and ontological questions, while Strauss was interested in the political aspects. Whitehead believed in progress, but like Strauss, he spoke of the fatal crisis of civilization in the West. Both stressed the indispensable role of religion, rejected scientism and believed in the existence of a natural order. Building on their views, Lovász argued that the authority of nature could be the basis for a 21st-century philosophy of nature. Today’s political philosophies are deontological and do not deal with questions of existence. Whitehead extends the concept of nature to all beings and rejects the distinction between nature and society. He considered liberal democracy the closest form of government to the natural order. Strauss was less of a democrat, but he held similar views in principle. For Strauss, the idea of the unification of nature and society, which implies the assumption of a natural order, could be an effective means of countering the hubris of the self-liberating subject. Both Whitehead and Strauss believed in natural law and the existence of eternal truths. They are also necessary to transcend postmodernity.

The final speaker of the second session, László Nemes (SOTE), examined the bioethical implications of the Anthropocene as a new epochal concept of the Earth’s history. The Anthropocene is the natural history hypothesis that the human species is having such a significant and irreversible impact on the entire surface of the Earth that it justifies the introduction of a new Earth history epoch. According to Nemes, the concept has considerable heuristic value and is in itself meaningless. In the context of the ecological crisis, the Anthropocene excludes the existence of intact nature, because, due to generational environmental forgetfulness, each new generation starts from its own youthful experience in defining the normal state of nature, and it follows that nature has no clear baseline. Like nature, health is a normative concept. Bioethics originally referred to the relationship to nature, but is nowadays most often used in the sense of biomedical ethics. However, it cannot be separated from environmental ethics. The One Health approach argues that, for public health reasons, the animal and human worlds should be brought together. Bioethics always applies to the natural environment, and solidarity must also extend to other species.

In the third and final session, the audience had the opportunity to listen to four lectures chaired by Ádám Lovász. János Frivaldszky (PPKE) drew attention to the parallels between eugenic thinking and transhumanism today. Based on natural law, Frivaldszky criticized the view of man as an animal and of nature itself as a mere imperfect raw material. Taking the biblical story of the Fall as a starting point, he traced the need for redemption in man to the need to technologically perfect the human body, which is considered a reject. The founder of transhumanism was Julian Huxley, the first Secretary General of UNESCO and brother of the writer Aldous Huxley. His ideology grew out of Darwinism, but is intrinsically about religious redemption. Frivaldszky pointed out that since then, scientific experiments have been able to prove the existence of a spiritual dimension, but the transhumanist religion’s representatives were merely transposing the insurmountable problems of human existence to the physical level. In fact, transhumanism can only be conceived in dystopian form, since its aim is to eliminate the spiritual dimension. The eugenics that preceded it was always fraught with confused ideologies. Today, transhumanism is associated with ideas such as the transformation of the human brain and the rethinking of man on algorithmic grounds. However, Frivaldszky argues that the essence of man should not be captured as a rational animal, but through an immortal spiritual dimension.

Márk Horváth (Eszterházy Károly Catholic University) took a closer look at the concept of the Anthropocene, already touched upon by László Nemes. The possible new era of Earth’s history replacing the Holocene is a generic name for a geochronological event or set of phenomena that emerged at the turn of the millennium and has since gained a place in the discourses of cultural studies and philosophy. It represents a geological transformation on a par with natural processes and stands out from other concepts describing ecocrisis. It suggests that humanity has become a geological force, creating a new framework for thinking about the environment. The Anthropocene usually begins in the mid-20th century. The Anthropocene eradicates the dichotomy between man and nature, the human sciences are part of the discourse on it, and it is, in fact, a series of man-made catastrophes, a new unstable hybrid era, accompanied by a sense of uncertainty. It is a complex ecological metacrisis, the study of which requires interdisciplinary collaboration. The use of an open Anthropocene concept is necessary to grasp the phenomenon, which represents a radical rupture, a break from the environmental stability of the Holocene. It is a new era of uncertainty and crisis, of finitude and anxiety, triggering destructive changes, foreshadowing the ghostly horizon of a planet without people. The Anthropocene is transforming the basic conditions of life on earth, it is causing systemic change, it will not pass away under any intervention, it is engaging us in a deep-time narrative, it cannot be interpreted without the human sciences.

‘Our current view of nature is characterized by a high degree of alienation’

András Karácsony (ELTE ÁJK), in his lecture entitled The Nature of Society, outlined the dimensions of the activity that society exerts on its natural environment. He argued that in ancient Greece, nature had a society, while in the modern era, this relationship has been reversed and society has a nature. The relationship between society and nature is defined by three important pillars. Nature is a source of danger on the one hand, and a useful resource to be exploited and protected on the other. These three pillars are not interconnected, so that modernity’s image of nature is fragmented and inconsistent, and the solution is to give nature personal dignity. Christmas reviewed the historical development of the relationship between nature and the social order, from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophical concept of the physis to the Roman reinterpretation of it as natura, separate from the spirit, which was the basis of the medieval opposition between the natural and the supernatural. Spinoza separated the concepts of creator and created nature, identifying God with nature. From the Age of Enlightenment onwards, nature became dominant, which went hand in hand with the neutralization of the concept of God through the assumption of the omnipotence of human reason. In the contract-theoretic tradition, society was created to tame the natural state, although Rousseau retained nature as a model. In the 19th century, Hegel’s philosophy of nature was the last attempt to interpret the results of natural science within a unified philosophical framework. Subsequently, the natural sciences, as specialized sciences, interpreted nature as the ultimate horizon of knowledge independent of God and man. From the 20th century onwards, however, critical views were expressed against this. Robert Spaemann argued that man was destroying nature, the basis of his own subsistence, and that the anthropocentric perspective needed to be overcome, and that new myths were needed. Environmental movements are, in fact, cultural movements, and climate protection can be seen as a new myth, since it is not possible to know exactly what role human activity plays in climate change and what role natural processes play. Technicist solutions to the ecological crisis actually isolate man from nature, and it is therefore important to clarify not only nature but also the nature of technology today.

The final lecture of the conference was given by Zoltán Pető (NKE EJKK MTKI) on the problem raised at the end of the previous lecture, ie, the relationship between technology and the concept of nature. Zoltán Pető stated that the ecological crisis goes beyond the problem of pollution and can be traced back to a dilemma of unity or duality of the human and natural worlds, which has been present since the recorded beginnings of human thought. The ecological crisis is closely linked to the idea of progress, according to which man is governed by immutable natural laws. Modern science sees man as an animal species, which contrasts with the scholastic definition of man as something between an animal and an angel. The medieval Christian philosophy of nature understood nature as God’s self-revelation, in the sense of natural theology, man as the vicegerent of the spiritual order in the created world, both a natural and a non-natural being, living in an interconnectedness with nature. The ecological crisis is caused by the idea of progress. Our current view of nature is characterized by a high degree of alienation, as it is seen as an adversary to be conquered and mastered. Modern man sees nature as a resource to be exploited, but also as a curiosity. The recognition of the beauty of the landscape separated from man can be traced back to Petrarch. This dichotomy also characterizes the relationship with animals, which are kept for their utility and as pets. This can also be linked to Descartes’ dualism. By the beginning of the 20th century, man had reached a point of total detachment from nature, expressed by Oswald Spengler in the concept of the gigantopolis. Modern man no longer lives in symbiosis with nature, but with technology, and sees himself as an animal species. According to the techno-optimistic view that dominates Western societies today, the problems caused by technology must be remedied by new technologies, the aim is to improve and perfect the human condition through technology, which leads to the transhumanist vision of the future, the idea of the transhumanization of man through technology, as expressed in Harari’s work. The critique against this is represented by the various left-wing and conservative versions of the green movement. Criticism of technology is already central to Spengler’s work, who argues that culture has become civilization, which has itself become a machine. He described Western modernity in terms of the archetype of the Faustian man, who, like the medieval alchemist Dr Faustus, sold his soul to the Devil for the knowledge he needed to gain power and pleasure. According to Spengler, this civilization would collapse under its own weight, from which it saw no way out. In his 1954 work Technological Society, the Christian anarchist thinker Jacques Ellul drew attention to the danger of the emerging autonomy of technology. Technology, which makes its own rules, is bringing politics, law and morality under its totalitarian sway, threatening human freedom. Zoltán Pető argues that the roots of the ecological crisis can be traced back to the change in outlook between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, to a kind of narrow interpretation of the ideas of Descartes and Bacon, and cannot be separated from the context of philosophical debates about the nature of human nature.

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