Claudia Welz is professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at the School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University. She is the PI of the interdisciplinary project “Epistemological Aspects of ‘Dialogue’: Exploring the Potential of the Second-Person Perspective” and the co-director of the Research Unit for Kierkegaard Studies.

Her research focuses on questions of orientation and draws mainly on Continental philosophy (particularly existential hermeneutics, phenomenology, philosophy of dialogue and of emotion), Systematic Theology in an interreligious context, modern Jewish thought, and religious motifs in contemporary literature. 

She has authored the monographs Love’s Transcendence and the Problem of Theodicy (Mohr Siebeck, 2008); Vertrauen und Versuchung (Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Humanity in God’s Image: An Interdisciplinary Exploration (Oxford University Press, 2016); and the essay collection SinnSang: Theologie und Poesie (Nordpark-Verlag, 2019) about the work of the poet Elazar Benyoëtz. She is currently working on an ethical, theological, and psychological phenomenology of listening.

Abstract:

Listening to Nature: Buber’s Philosophy of Dialogue and Environmental Ethics

 This paper explores possibilities and limits of Buber’s dialogical approach to nature, that is, to fauna and flora as well as inanimate geological formations and the four elements. The latter also carry symbolic meanings. For instance, in the Hebrew Bible, wind is linked to ruah, the divine spirit, which, according to Buber, is or can become present ‘between’ all creatures and is believed to suffuse the whole creation. Buber’s philosophy of dialogue contains key notions such as Hinwendung, a turning to the Other, and Verantwortung, responsibility based on a caring response to the Other’s existence, which not only imply verbal language, but also and primarily one’s openness to and acceptance of the Other’s being-there. In relation to non-human nature, human beings’ ability to ‘listen’ to its silent posture is required, but what exactly does it mean to listen to nature? In what ways does listening promote dialogues with and about nature? And how can such a listening stance and dialogical approach to nature contribute to environmental ethics in these times of climate change? These questions will be explored in a truly dialogical fashion: in an interdisciplinary conversation between Claudia Welz (ethics and philosophy of religion) and Essi Ikonen (educational research).