Views on Biotic Nature and the Idea of Sustainable Development

The search for balance between humankind’s civilisational aspirations and the durable protection of nature is conditioned by contemporaneous views of biotic nature. Of particular importance in this regard are physiocentric and physiological views that may be set against one another. The fi rst of these was presented by Hans Jonas, the second by Lothar Schäfer. This paper does not confi ne itself to setting one view against the other, but rather sets minimum conditions for cooperation between their promoters in the interests of balance between the aspirations of the present generation and those of future generations. Both views of nature are in their own way conducive to a break with the illusion present in some areas of the modern natural sciences – that nature is a boundless area of are inexhaustible resources