Eighteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

David Budbill formulates the problem: “A syndrome I call the Terrarium View of the World: nature always at a distance, under glass” (Berry, 28). The human being is defined as “other” than the natural world, and, thus Planet Earth is viewed and experienced as a foreign realm to be plundered or preserved, but not lived in. An autobiographical excursus explores that problem before turning to Heidegger’s discussion of the human not-at-homeness in the world based on his interpretation of deinon from Sophocles’s Antigone which he translates “unheimlich” (“uncanny”) which is the human’s “not-at-homeness” in the world. I argue for a re-homing of human beings developing the theme Pope Francis announces in the sub-title of Laudato Si’: “On Care for Our Common Home.” To that end, I explore the meaning of home in the Bible, reading Homer through Plotinus, and then—finally—in the nature of praise.