Between Being and Emptiness

This chapter discusses the “eco-ontological” position by putting John Dewey into conversation with the Madhyamika Buddhism of Nāgārjuna. It compares the Western tradition’s “ontology of identity” with Buddhism’s “ontology of emptiness” and argues that an ecologically oriented ontology must find a middle path. It first examines the problematic relationship between philosophy and wisdom, along with the “human” side of this relationship. It then summarizes the central ideas that have constituted the so-called “Human Eros”, a claim that human beings by nature seek to experience the world as a fulfillment of meaning and value. The chapter also describes the elements of an intermediary position that proposes the idea of natural histories as creative continuities, reflecting on the “home,” or oikos, of philosophy as a wisdom of inhabitation. It presents this attempt toward an “ecology of being” or “eco-ontology” as a directive for wisdom.