Distributed Cognition, Distributed Being, and the Foundations of Law

Abstract

The human-nonhuman division runs through the idea and philosophy of law as understood in Western thinking. But it is only one way of understanding our place as human beings in the world. The division is, in fact, an anthropocentric mythology that obscures several important facts: first, that human life is part of and not fundamentally separate from life generally; second, that we are entirely dependent on the physical world and most particularly the land for our existence; third, that human beings are first and foremost physical beings. This chapter has two parts. First, I examine the constitution of the Western version of law through the lens of the differentiation of the human from the non-human, a distinction that is reified (though not perfectly) in the concepts of person and property. Second, I consider what might be the possibilities for a view of law that does not so thoroughly rely upon this division. Even articulating these objectives is daunting, since law derived from the civil and common law traditions of Western Europe is so thoroughly grounded in and imbued with the human-nonhuman distinction, its singularized persons and objectified property.