Biophilia is a term coined by German philosopher-psychologist Erich Fromm (1900-1980) and grows out of his writings on the role of “love” in human societies. For Fromm, mature love plays an essential role in centering us as human beings. Generous, tolerant, and non-possessive, mature love enables us to care for the happiness and growth in another person, but without losing our own sense of identity and belonging. When this kind of love is nurtured, individuals and societies flourish. In its absence, however, we experience isolation and alienation—two key sources of human unhappiness.

While much of Fromm’s focus was on human relationships, he also included the natural world in his ideas about love and care. In his book, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), Fromm defined biophilia as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive; it is the wish to further growth, whether in a person, a plant, an idea, or a social group.”

Biophilia, then, is not only a sense of vital connection between and among all living things, it is also an orientation and a desire to “further growth” in those around us, including the “those” of the natural world.

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson (1929-2021) developed this last idea further by suggesting that biophilia is “hardwired” into all living things. For humans, it is what ultimately drives us toward a deeper interconnection with nature.

Biophilia in Perdita

The novel Perdita takes both Fromm and Wilson’s ideas about biophilia a step further, suggesting that it has a distinctively Western history, but is a concept which, alas, has been suppressed and thus “lost” to the tradition. As the novel reveals, biophilia is first mentioned in the cosmological writings of the ancient Greeks. The concept is thus rooted in early Western ideas about the world and reality. Tied to the story of a small child (a little girl whose name, “Perdita,” means lost), biophilia plays a vital role in how humans evolve. As a special form of love, biophilia complements all the other kinds of love that humans experience (e.g., friendship, romantic love, unconditional love, love of family). There is also a suggestion that without biophilia, humans cannot experience the fullness of love. That is, without a deep love for the natural world, we humans are somehow incomplete.

As the novel attests, the Perdita myth was originally recorded by the Greek poet Hesiod in the 8th century BCE and then excised from subsequent copies of his work. For almost three millennia, then, the Perdita myth has been lost, unknown to us—until re-discovered by a pair of Canadian classical scholars in the late 20th century.

As I sit here at my desk writing this entry for the 12^th Anniversary Edition of Perdita, I can’t help thinking about climate change and the dire necessity we face as humans to recast and reformulate our relationships with the natural world. For many of us, this may include not only listening to alternative ways of thinking, but also combing all traditions, including Western ones, for stories that might help us find better paths. Today these thoughts are particularly compelling as I think about the uncontrolled wildfires burning forests around the world, including here in Canada, right now, where I live. I have a feeling that Perdita and her story about biophilia couldn’t have resurfaced at a better time.

© Hilary Scharper, 2025.