Virtual Talk by Henry Dicks on Biomimetic and Other Epistemologies

We are happy to welcome Henry Dicks in our series of online seminars on the philosophy of biomimetics on Monday, 12. December 2022, 8 pm CET / 7pm UCT / 2 pm EST.

Abstract: Implicit in Janine Benyus’s influential exposition of biomimicry is the idea that it embodies a new epistemological relation to nature. Nature is no longer simply what we learn about, the object of our knowledge, but what we learn from, the source of our knowledge. As it stands, however, this insight remains under-theorized and has yet to be brought into sustained dialogue with contemporary epistemology. In this talk, I will first develop the contrast between conventional epistemology (learning about nature) and what I propose to call “biomimetic epistemology” (learning from nature), before comparing and contrasting biomimetic epistemology with various different alternative epistemologies, including naturalized epistemology, externalist epistemology, social epistemology, feminist epistemology, environmental epistemology, and indigenous epistemology. By way of conclusion, I will spell out the various ways in which I think biomimetic epistemology is significant.

Henry Dicks is an environmental philosopher, currently teaching environmental ethics and environmental political philosophy at University Jean Moulin Lyon 3. His research focuses on the philosophy of biomimicry, which he analyses in its ontological, technological, ethical and epistemological dimensions. Following the completion of a DPhil at the University of Oxford on Heidegger and environmental philosophy, he has held two post-docs at the Institute of Philosophical Research of the University of Lyon, the most recent one in a collaborative research project of the University of Lyon’s urban studies research centre, IMU (Intelligence des Mondes Urbains), on the emerging concept of “biomimetic cities”. He runs the website Philosophy & Biomimicry.

His new book, The Biomimicry Revolution: Learning from Nature How to Inhabit the Earth, will be published with Columbia University Press in March 2023.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Ludger Jansen (November 17, 2022). Virtual Talk by Henry Dicks on Biomimetic and Other Epistemologies. Philosophy of Biomimetics. Retrieved February 15, 2026 from https://biomimetics.hypotheses.org/490


One thought on “Virtual Talk by Henry Dicks on Biomimetic and Other Epistemologies

  1. Henry appears to ignore our evolutionary history.
    Over some period in our prehistory we ceased to be a part of nature (i.e. we WERE nature) and separated to become observers and then significant plunderers (or destroyers) of nature. This change may have been facilitated by the skills of building shelters and preparing nutritional food from a wide range of resources, thus isolating ourselves further from our origins. The wide range of knowledge of self-medication must originate from pre-human species. Most (probably all) apes and monkeys have a repertoire of hundreds of medicinal plants. Since many of the plants are poisonous in bulk, this knowledge is not easy to derive de novo.
    The view that “human development since the emergence of farming and its associated features, including storage, accumulation, new technologies, and the concentration of people into villages, then cities, should be seen as a trade-off rather than a linear advancement, as the loss of ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’ and the profound understanding of the natural world and the symbioses that enable it to function, that we needed to survive and evolve as hunter gatherers, has gradually been eroded.” (Rev. Bras. Farmacogn. (2021) 31:1–15) should be recast as the creeping separation of our culture from its roots in our ape-like ancestors. When will we stop thinking of ourselves as exceptional beings?
    As such we don’t learn from nature so much as rediscover ourselves.

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