Diversité, ordre et unité du vivant dans les savoirs populaires

Abstract

At a time when popular knowledge about managing the environment is appealed to more and more frequently, it appears important to understand how and by what organising principles it is enacted. For the animal and vegetal environment, it is essential to understand up to what degree of diversity and discretion one organism can be identified, and what type of classification can be applied. This is precisely what is examined here, with the help of examples taken from diverse societies, including France, and concerning the vegetal world. Our objective here is to show how representations of the latter are in relation to the plant features, to Man's own cognitive processes, and to the role plants are performing in those societies. The recognition and classification of the diversity of living beings correspond to two levels of knowledge organisation that can be apprehended from designation terms. A third level does exist, encompassing all living beings, including human, in the functioning of each society. It concerns not only individuals, but also the elements that they are made up of, that condition their birth and growth, in the course of their existence, and at the moment of their death. The example presented here concerns one non-modern society, yet the reasoning principle at stake is just as valid for the non-modern aspects of our own societies. The ideas that one society makes up about its own functioning and about the whole universe give meaning to the knowledge. It is necessary to take this into account when we take action in managing the environment. © Elsevier / NSS, 1997.