Naturvergessenheit : Erinnerung an die verlorene Ganzheit des Menschen im 18. Jahrhundert

This paper follows the narrative of humanity's forgetfulness of nature (Naturvergessenheit) and its consequences. Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s Dialectic of the Enlightenment serves as a starting and end point for a reflection on historical constellations of body concepts, human societies, and nature. These body concepts hve been negotiated as nervous bodies since the 18th century and have repeatedly put a lost wholeness  (Ganzheit)  up  for  debate.  Although  no  relief was  found  for  the  almost pathological desire for wholeness, the negotiations helped to verbalize something which has recurred since the Enlightenment: a dialectical desire for reconciliation and an ongoing emancipatory attempt to remember one's own nature.