Peter Godfrey-Smith

speaker

184 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 24 Aug

Peter Godfrey-Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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Close Readings · Nature in Crisis: ‘Is a River Alive?’ by Robert Macfarlane · 3 Jun 2026 podcast

We see the harm that's done.

Now, one of the things I like about the Le Guin quote is that what she said is...

One option, one way of moving away from the commodification of nature is towards this animist conception.

It's not the only one, and this is something I think is really important.

We don't just have a choice here between seeing forests and rivers and things like that.

as commodities or sources of commodities on one side and seeing them as living organisms in their own right on the other.

It's quite possible to think that these things should be protected and treated in quite special ways, not because they're alive, but because they have special kinds of value that are properly seen as quite separate from any commodity type role they have.

The quote from Le Guin really said it like that.

This is one way of departing from the commercial exploitative mindset, not necessarily the only way.

That's a big thing for me.

All through here, the idea that there are other options beside the two that people like McFarlane and also his interlocutors and the people he works with, there are other options beside the two that are forever being contrasted here, you know, commodity versus living system in its own right.

There are less theoretically problematic ways of recognizing the value in natural systems and their entitlement, or at least the goodness of protecting them.

There are ways of doing that without going down this animist road.

Good for the earth, good for the whole system, which includes us, includes them.

I mean, that's a very good question.

And for someone like me, it's a big thing and I don't want to sound glib about it.

And once you say that the river is an organism in its own right, it solves the problem of where the alternative locus of value might be.

It's then straightforward to say, we humans are not the only value bearers in this situation.

The river is an organism too, and it should get a say.

It should have its rights respected.

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