New Paths in the Philosophy of Imitating and Learning from Nature
A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 March 2025 | Viewed by 304
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental philosophy; biomimicry; Martin Heidegger; philosophy of technology; autopoiesis
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Imitating and learning from nature form part of a widely recognized approach in almost all fields of innovation, from engineering and design to architecture and agriculture. Recent years have also seen a significant rise in philosophical interest in the topic, with philosophers of science and technology making important contributions to biomimetics and bioinspiration, and environmental philosophers focusing more on biomimicry, which underlines the normative, ethical, and sustainability aspects of the approach. The result is that many basic philosophical areas have now been covered in reasonable detail, including history and philosophy of nature-inspired design (Tamborini 2022, Gerola et al. 2023), the relationship to environmental ethics (Blok and Gremmen 2016, Dicks 2019), the epistemological importance of “learning from nature” (Dicks 2023), and even ontological discussions of nature (Mathews 2011). Further contributions to these debates are welcome, but we are particularly interested in philosophical analyses that address new and under-explored areas, including (i) applied fields, such as AI and robotics, military technologies, or environment and climate-focussed technologies; (ii) nature-inspired design as seen from the perspective of other humanities or social science disciplines, including art and literature, anthropology and sociology, development studies, law, economics, and politics; and (iii) the relation of nature-inspired design to other approaches, including bio-design, bio-hybridization, eco-conception, and nature-based solutions.
Dr. Henry Dicks
Dr. Marco Tamborini
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- biomimetics
- bioinspiration
- biomimicry
- environmental ethics
- philosophy of science
- philosophy of technology
- nature-inspired design
- learning from nature
- sustainability
- AI and robotics
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