Organisms and Environments as Combined Systems

Abstract

The present paper aims at exploring the relation between organisms (Life) and environments (Earth), and at showing that nowadays we need new conceptual categories to account for such a relation. Over the last thirty years, indeed, the boundaries of what is meant by “environment” and “organisms” have been transformed, and, more precisely, “Earth” and “Life” must be grasped as a “combined system”. But this dynamic, which does not keep separate the organisms from their life-worlds, it is widely present also at the political and cultural level. So, what is well-known on a scientific level, i.e. that it is the life itself which produces the environment and, at the same time, is subjected to the effects of its modifications on the environment, has to be investigated also at the practical level. Here, a sample of such an investigation will be offered through the analysis of the common mediator of the relationship between Life and Earth, i.e. that metabolic exchange between external and internal bodies that consists of “Food”. Then, some reflections on the current forms of the relationship between environment and “Crime” will be provided and some open questions on the recent concept of “environmental crime” will be raised.