Ana Romano Ribeiro

In 1516, More wrote to Erasmus, putting him in charge of the publication of Utopia. In his study about the “sources, parallels and influences” of More’s libellus, Edward Surtz points out that “the most evident influences are classical” and in 1965, in the introduction of his edition of Utopia, he noted that in the composition of this fiction, Plato and Plutarch are as essential as Cicero and Seneca. He also noted that these philosophers are “the source for the tenets and arguments of the two schools discussed by the Utopians, the Epicurean and the Stoic” and that “Cicero’s De finibus is of special interest here, but detailed studies of Ciceronian and Senecan influences have still to be made.” (p.cliv, clxi). From 1965 until today we haven’t found a specific study on this problem in the bibliography about Utopia and classical Latin literature, that’s why in this paper we will examine some of the connections that link More’s libellus to De finibus.

This article discusses the existing duality between the terms Earth and world under the of the 21st century ecological crisis. It proposes, from the deconstruction of anthropocentric and ecocentric values, an analysis of the philanthropic/sustainable paradigm, as a way of understanding the interdisciplinary nature of the possible coexistence between Man and Nature. For this, are demonstrated some hierarchical imbalances present in the concession of Western culture proposed by Samuel Huntington, in the ecological imaginary of indigenous communities defended by Zoe Todd, and in the environmental impact of consumer society from the perspective of Patrick Curry, Richard Sylvan, and David Bennett. As a result, the importance of understanding a balance between consumption and production is demonstrated, condemning the elitist anthropocentrism of western communities as the cause and solution of the ecological problem, transversally illustrated from the market and the art world under the conception of the practical uselessness of its existence and given its contribution to a problem of overproduction.