HOW WE MAKE SENSE OF (WHAT WE CALL) NATURE - Making Sense of Nature - page 18

Study Task: Can you identify some commonly used words that commu-
nicate one or more of the four meanings of nature? In each case, which
meanings are communicated? If, initially, you find this task challenging it
will help you to read the second example in Box 1.1.

In the early twenty-first-century, nature's collateral terms include the fol-
lowing, among others: 'environment', 'wilderness', 'gene', 'genius', 'biology',
'race', 'sex', 'biodiversity', 'animal', 'life', 'intelligence', 'human', 'instinct',
'blood', 'reality', 'climate change', 'mind' and 'ecosystem' (see Figure 1.4) .
Some of these terms are relatively old, others relatively new. Some appear
semantically simple and straightforward (though, in actuality, they're not),
others more evidently complex. The precise ways in which they partake of
the meanings of 'nature' varies, according to both the word and the context
of reference. Most of them feature in discussions of both human and non-
human nature, but some are used more exclusively. Most of them are also
freighted with meanings that go beyond those connoted by the term 'nature'.
These collateral words are thus only partly, rather than exclusively, synonyms
for the latter. It depends entirely on the circumstances of their invocation
and usage. Let me offer two brief examples, one relating to human biology,
the other to the non-human world.
'Race' is almost as old a term as 'nature' itself, and its meanings are
almost as diverse and complex. Some are still apt to use the word in a
universal sense ('the human race'), thereby denoting our biological differ-
ences from other species - differences that were the focus of the Human
Genome Project (HGP), a 13-year international attempt to describe the

NATURE

Collateral
terms

Ecosystem Environment 'Race' Sex Genes ... Etc.

The entire
physical world

The non-
human world

The essence
of something

An inherent
power or force

Signifieds

Referents

Figure 1.4 Nature and its collateral concepts
The principal meanings of the word nature (i.e. what it signifies) are routinely attached to all manner
of material referents by way of other words (i.e. collateral terms). The words and meanings become
conjoined in often complicated ways; however, these collateral terms may also signify meanings
beyond the four signified by 'nature'.