“Being and the Sea. For an ecological existentialism”, by Corine Pelluchon, PUF, 336 p., €21, digital €15.
RETHINK EVERYTHING FROM THE OCEAN
A rock, a solid ground, a fixed point. This is what has been privileged, throughout history, to found a true thought. This philosophical domination of the “solid” is so old, its obviousness so familiar, that we no longer notice it. In Being and the SeaCorine Pelluchon invites a complete reversal of perspective: giving priority to water, to fluidity, to the omnipresence of the sea which engenders the “blue planet”. Objective: to think differently about human existence in its relationship to the natural world, to animal life, to life in general.
The project is ambitious. Its implementation, interesting, weaves a series of distinct threads. They extend and inflect the itinerary of this philosopher, who is among the most original and inventive of the time. From vulnerability to ecology, including the animal cause, her abundant work – almost twenty titles in twenty years – is characterized by a constant concern to closely link conceptual work and crises of our time. She also distinguishes herself, despite a real radicalism, by a permanent desire to reconcile the struggles to be waged and the love of life.
The new stage of her thinking leads her to develop a “ecological existentialism”. From the great current of contemporary thought, she mainly retains that we are “thrown into the world”, “condemned to be free”, “alone and without excuses”as Sartre said. But her existentialism is an oceanism, if one can say so. While drawing inspiration from Kierkegaard, Levinas, Husserl or Merleau-Ponty, Corine Pelluchon insists on the omnipresence of the common aquatic world that precedes us, surrounds us and encompasses us. We owe it our life. But we forget it, seeing only dry land.
“Living metaphor”
This change of axis generates transformations and transpositions in the key notions of existentialism: rather than “thrown” on still ground, “We are welcomed from birth on a boat and so we are not alone there”. “Floatation”, « submersion », “fluidity” constitute the main operators of this intellectual and sensitive reorientation. Will it be said that these are only metaphors? The philosopher speaks of “vivid metaphor”taking up a formula from Paul Ricœur, one of his major references.
From this abundant essay, we will remember Corine Pelluchon’s renewed ardor to build with philosophy a vital aid, illuminating paths to cross the dramas that await us. We will also highlight two highlights among others. First, a critical analysis of the current law of the sea. This law conceives the ocean as an inert element to be appropriated, an external zone to be subjected to the domination of emerged lands and States, a resource to be exploited. Nowhere is this really taken into consideration “mother sea”nourishing and living, to be respected and preserved, whose primordial role the philosopher affirms.
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