Domination and Liberation of Nature

The paper addresses the scope of the human relationship to nature. This scope encompasses a twofold emancipation. The first emancipation is the emancipation from nature that enables the domination of nature by science and technology. The second emancipation is the emancipation from this first emancipation, stemming from the insight that we have to conceive of nature, and respect nature accordingly, as another self that displays itself. I argue that it is precisely the step towards such second emancipation that lies at the core of the revolution of our consciousness of nature that currently seems to be unfolding. Yet the urgent question arises as to how such a “liberation of nature” (Hegel) can be understood sustainably without falling behind the achievements of Kantian philosophy, into a dogmatic ontology or even naturalism. The article delineates a systematic answer to this question by addressing some crucial points in Kant and Hegel.