Nature as a Political Subject: Sovereignty, Reciprocity, and Metamorphosis

No politics exists that does not measure itself against nature. But what do we mean by nature when we make it the subject—or the object—of political discourse? Three fragments, three answers that do not answer one another. Aristotle examines a social fact whose foundation lies in nature; Davi Kopenawa describes a divine action in which nature serves as the instrument of struggle; Emanuele Coccia situates nature within a reflexive framework where it becomes the very principle of transformation. These positions do not oppose one another frontally, nor do they articulate: they coexist as irreducible modes of apprehension, without possible synthesis. Their juxtaposition alone allows us to glimpse what a politics of nature might be—not as doctrine, but as a field of tensions.

Aristotle: Nature as the Foundation of Political Order

Aristotle offers a reading in which nature is not a territory to be conquered, but the bedrock upon which the city is built. The passage cited does not concern nature in general, but a precise fact: slavery. It is not a metaphor for human domination over the living, but a historical and conceptual observation.

It should be noted that Aristotle is the only philosopher of antiquity who sought to account for the great fact of slavery, the foundation of Greek society—as it would later be of Roman society.

What is at stake here is not nature as the sum of the living, but nature as a principle of social organization. Slavery is not presented as arbitrary violence, but as a fact that must be accounted for—that is, understood in its foundations, justifications, and limits. In this context, nature is not an object to be subdued, but the framework within which political order unfolds. It is what allows us to think the city, not what the city must dominate.

Aristotle does not say that nature is a space to be organized, but that slavery—an institution—finds its legitimacy in a certain conception of human nature. Sovereignty does not consist in bending nature to rational ends, but in recognizing within nature the conditions of possibility for political order. The city is not an artificial construct opposed to nature, but a realization of its potentialities.

This approach assumes no rupture between the human and the rest of the living. It does not speak of nature as a whole, but of a particular aspect of human nature—servitude—as the foundation of collective life. Nature is not a territory to be conquered, but the ground upon which politics is constructed.

Davi Kopenawa: Nature as the Instrument of Divine Struggle

Davi Kopenawa describes a scene in which nature is neither foundation nor principle, but an actor in a cosmological narrative. It is not the framework of human action, but the tool of a higher power.

It is with her that Omama routs the malevolent beings of the forest and the beings of epidemic.

Here, nature is neither an object nor an autonomous subject, but a means. It is “with” Omama, not as a partner, but as an instrument. The pronoun “her” refers to an unspecified entity—perhaps the forest, perhaps a broader force—that serves as the vector of divine action. The “malevolent beings” and the “beings of epidemic” are not imbalances, but enemies to be vanquished. Nature is not a network of relations, but a battlefield where a struggle between opposing forces unfolds.

There is no question of reciprocity, nor of mutual dependence. The relationship is not horizontal, but vertical: Omama acts through nature, not with it. Sovereignty is not shared, but absolute—it belongs to Omama, who exercises it through nature. The forest is not a political subject, but a tool in a cosmic war.

This vision does not deny the agency of non-humans, but subordinates it to a higher logic. The “malevolent beings” and the “beings of epidemic” are actors, but their action is always already inscribed in a narrative where nature is an instrument, not a partner. Politics, if it exists here, is not a human affair, but a divine one.

Emanuele Coccia: Nature as the Framework of Metamorphosis

Emanuele Coccia situates nature within a reflexive register where it is neither foundation nor instrument, but the principle of transformation. The cited passage does not speak of nature as a whole, but of a particular aspect: metamorphosis as the plastic force of vegetal bodies.

And it is within the framework of this reflection on metamorphosis as the plastic force proper to all vegetal bodies that much of what we now call “developmental biology”

Nature is not an object of study, but a conceptual framework. Metamorphosis is not presented as a general property of the living, but as a force specific to vegetal bodies. “Developmental biology” is not the key to understanding nature, but a field that fits within a broader reflection on metamorphosis.

Coccia does not claim that nature is a flux of permanent transformations. He does not speak of human sovereignty, nor of its questioning. He describes a theoretical framework in which vegetal metamorphosis becomes an object of reflection, without drawing political or ethical consequences. Nature is not a subject, but a concept that allows us to think the plasticity of living forms.

This approach does not deny human agency, but does not thematize it. It does not propose a holistic vision of nature, but an angle of analysis: metamorphosis as a property of vegetal bodies. Politics is not absent, but it is not named. Nature is neither a territory to be conquered, nor a network of relations, nor a flux, but a framework for thinking transformation.

Three Conditions, One Question

These three fragments do not sketch a dialectic. They do not oppose, complement, or answer one another. Aristotle speaks of nature as the foundation of political order; Davi Kopenawa describes it as the instrument of divine action; Emanuele Coccia makes it the framework for a reflection on vegetal metamorphosis. None of these positions can be reduced to the others, nor integrated into a synthesis.

Yet their juxtaposition reveals something essential: nature is never a given, but always a construction. For Aristotle, it is the bedrock of the city; for Davi Kopenawa, the tool of Omama; for Coccia, the framework for a reflection on vegetal plasticity. None of these approaches claims to exhaust the question. None proposes a univocal definition.

Their very divergence is political. It shows that nature is neither an object to be dominated, nor a subject with which to dialogue, nor a flux in which we are immersed. It is a question—always open, always contested. A question that demands we think of politics not as a relation of power over nature, but as a relation to nature—that is, to what always eludes us.