The Biomimicry Revolution

Learning from Nature How to Inhabit the Earth

Henry Dicks

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English

Columbia University Press
14 March 2023

Industrial: Commercial Art & Design; Environmentally-friendly architecture & design; Philosophy; Impact of science & technology on society; Conservation of the environment

Modernity is founded on the belief that the world we build is a human invention, not a part of nature. The ecological consequences of this idea have been catastrophic. We have laid waste to natural ecosystems, replacing them with fundamentally unsustainable human designs. With time running out to address the environmental crises we have caused, our best path forward is to turn to nature for guidance.

In this book, Henry Dicks explores the philosophical significance of a revolutionary approach to sustainable innovation: biomimicry. The term describes the application and adaptation of strategies found in nature to the development of artificial products and systems, such as passive cooling techniques modeled on termite mounds or solar cells modeled on leaves. Dicks argues that biomimicry, typically seen as just a design strategy, can also serve as the basis for a new environmental philosophy that radically alters how we understand and relate to the natural world. By showing how we can imitate, emulate, and learn from nature, biomimicry points us toward a genuinely sustainable way of inhabiting the earth.

Rooted in philosophy, The Biomimicry Revolution has profound implications spanning the natural sciences, design, architecture, sustainability studies, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. It presents a sweeping reconception of what philosophy can be and offers a powerful new vision of terrestrial existence.

By: Henry Dicks
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780231208819
ISBN 10: 0231208812
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 14 March 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Henry Dicks is an environmental philosopher and philosopher of technology. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and lectures in environmental philosophy and ethics at University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and Shanghai University and in the philosophy of biomimicry at the Institut Supérieur de Design de Saint-Malo.

Reviews for The Biomimicry Revolution: Learning from Nature How to Inhabit the Earth

This is an exciting and intellectually invigorating study into the underlying philosophy of biomimicry. Building upon the three principles central to biomimicry—nature as model, nature as measure, nature as mentor—Dicks creates a new philosophical framework structured by technics, ethics, and epistemology. What follows is a lively and groundbreaking ontological inquiry into ‘the nature of nature’ and what we can learn from nature about sustainably inhabiting the earth. -- Adrian Parr, author of <i>Earthlings: Imaginative Encounters with the Natural World</i>