Ecology and Existence

Bringing Sartre to the Water's Edge

Inbunden, Engelska, 2017

AvMatthew C. Ally

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This study explores the increasingly troubled relationship between humankind and the Earth, with the help of a simple example and a complicated interlocutor. The example is a pond, which, it turns out, is not so simple as it seems. The interlocutor is Jean-Paul Sartre, novelist, playwright, biographer, philosopher, and, despite his several disavowals, doyen of twentieth-century existentialism. Standing with the great humanist at the edge of the pond, the author examines contemporary experience in the light of several familiar conceptual pairs: nature and culture, fact and value, reality and imagination, human and nonhuman, society and ecology, Earth and world. The theoretical challenge is to reveal the critical complementarity and experiential unity of this family of ideas. The practical task is to discern the heuristic implications of this lived unity-in-diversity in these times of social and ecological crisis. Interdisciplinary in its aspirations, the study draws upon recent developments in biology and ecology, complexity science and systems theory, ecological and Marxist economics, and environmental history. Comprehensive in its engagement of Sartre’s oeuvre, the study builds upon his best-known existentialist writings, and also his critique of colonialism, voluminous ethical writings, early studies of the imaginary, and mature dialectical philosophy. In addition to overviews of Sartre’s distinctive inflections of phenomenology and dialectics and his unique theories of praxis and imagination, the study also articulates for the first time Sartre’s incipient philosophical ecology. In keeping with Sartre’s lifelong commitment to freedom and liberation, the study concludes with a programmatic look at the relative merits of pragmatist, prefigurative, and revolutionary activism within the burgeoning global struggle for social and ecological justice. We learn much by thinking with Sartre at the water’s edge: surprising lessons about our changing humanity and how we have come to where we are; timely lessons about the shifting relation between us and the broader community of life to which we belong; difficult lessons about our brutal degradation of the planetary system upon which life depends; and auspicious lessons, too, about a participatory path forward as we work to preserve a habitable planet and build a livable world for all earthlings.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2017-07-20
Mått160 x 234 x 48 mm
Vikt1 039 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor562
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9780739182888

Tillhör följande kategorier

Filosofiska discipliner inom Filosofi och religion

Matthew C. Ally was supposed to be an ecologist. During the same semester in which he took a required course in “Temperate Forest Ecosystems,” he took an elective philosophy course called “Tyranny and Freedom.” The rest is history. He is professor of philosophy at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York and coordinator of the BMCC Sustainability Studies Project. He has published articles on Sartre’s philosophy, progressive and radical pedagogy, philosophical ecology, environmentalism, and sustainability.

Prelude – Many Ways to Wonderconfessions of a lifelong pond watcherPART I – ENVIRONMENTALISM AND HUMANISMSHIPS PASSING IN THE LIGHTChapter 1 – Toward an Existential Ecologywater, water, everywhereChapter 2 – Bringing Sartre to the Biospherethe truth of a pondPART II – NATURE AND CULTUREWHAT CAN WE KNOW ABOUT A POND?1st Interval – On Method and SubstancephenomenologyChapter 3 – A Phenomenological Explorationto the pond itself2nd Interval – On Method and SubstancedialecticsChapter 4 – A Dialectical Investigationeverything is in this pondPART III – FACT AND VALUEONE POND, RIGHT OR WRONGChapter 5 – Order and Autonomy in Nature and Historywhat ponds do3rd Interval – On Method and SubstancepraxisChapter 6 – From Integral Humanity to Participatory Belongingwet feet and a helping handPART IV – REALITY AND IMAGINATIONPONDS ON EARTH AND OTHER WORLDSChapter 7 – A Global Crisis in Planetary Perspectivestirring up a sea of troubles4th Interval – On Method and SubstanceimaginationChapter 8 – Intimations of a New Socioecological Imaginaryeddies, bubbles, and ripples PART V – EARTH AND WORLDFROM HABITABILITY TO LIVEABILITYChapter 9 – To the Far Side of Anthropocentrismsafely through the straits5th Interval – On Method and SubstanceecologyChapter 10 – On the Near Side of Ecocentrismrunning waters, deeper stillCoda – Bringing Earth and world together againsketch of an existential ecology

This book is truly unique: at once brilliant, timely, often amusing, and exceptionally rich in its references to contemporary thinking in philosophy, history, and science. Professor Ally engages Jean-Paul Sartre as his Virgil in a revealing trek through nature, from a sylvan pond to the outer rings of the global ecological crisis. In the end, while not concealing the hellish aspect of our current situation, he argues strongly and convincingly against abandoning hope.