Heidelberg School of Education Conviviality: Our Primary Connectedness to Living Beings

The concept of conviviality is proposed to denote the sense of a primary connectedness with the living environment through our own sense of aliveness and embodiment. It includes three interconnected aspects: an epistemological aspect, according to which we can only recognize other living beings in their selfhood and distinguish them from inanimate things as fellow creatures, from the experience of our shared bodily existence; a natural philosophical and ecological aspect, which refers to the fundamental interdependence of all living beings; an ethical aspect, in which our kinship and connectedness with living beings be-comes the basis for an attitude of care and commitment towards them. All three aspects are based on our embodiment which points to the fundamentally relational character of our existence, our life in relationships and in ecological contexts. Thus, our own experience of corporeality and aliveness can become the basis of an ecological ethic.