Resumen

PINILLOS, Marcela. La Naturaleza histórica de la biodiversidad: elementos conceptuales de una crisis. INCI [online]. 2005, vol.30, n.4, pp.235-242. ISSN 0378-1844.

Biodiversity is here considered both as a concept and as an ongoing problem. As a concept it expresses an entirely new form of seeing the world, being in the context of this new ontology where the associated crisis acquires its current social and political dimensions. The ontology of biodiversity responds to a new paradigm, the systemic paradigm, which sees reality as a complex and continuously mutating product of a netlike interaction among entities of different nature, which in turn, are the product of reticular interactions at a lower integration level. When reasoning regarding the implications of this paradigm for the understanding of living systems (organisms, ecological and socio-cultural systems), their ethical consequences are perceived, which are at the core of the discussion on how legitimate is the existing social project. It is concluded that biodiversity entails problems of a well defined historical nature: the cognitive schizophrenia of understanding the world in one manner and yet acting as if it were in an entirely different way, therefore building the foundations of a true existential crisis of humankind.

Palabras clave : Biodiversidad; Ontología; Procesos Cognitivos; Retroalimentación; Sistemas Vivos.