Now is a time of tremendous anxiety about the present and future state of the world. As the second law of thermodynamics states, entropy never decreases, time marches relentlessly forward, and closed systems inevitably break down. Entropy serves as a powerful metaphor capturing expressions of growing malaise and decline.Entropic Philosophy: Chaos, Breakdown, and Creation builds on the meaning of entropy from the Greek entropia, signifying “a turning toward” or “transformation.” Developing a philosophy of entropy, this book draws variously from anthropology, psychoanalysis, literature, art, and the history of philosophy. This approach opens pathways for reverence and care that are crucial in preventing fear, existential inertia, and despair.
Shannon Mussett is Professor of Philosophy at Utah Valley University
1.Acknowledgments2.Preface3.Introduction4.Chapter One: Entropy in Science and Metaphor5.Chapter Two: Entropy in Ancient Greek Thought6.Chapter Three: Entropy in German Philosophies of Nature7.Chapter Four: Leveling Modernity: Entropy in Freud and Lévi-Strauss8.Chapter Five: Old Age and Entropic Decline9.Chapter Six: Entropic Excess: Reconfiguring Matter and Waste10.Chapter Seven: Destruction and the Joy of Creation 11.Conclusion12.Bibliography13.Author Bio
Mussett’s work is a striking display of erudition that provides a novel re-introduction to and re-reading of the history of Western thought. It offers a profound and creative new approach to the exigency of our ethical responsibilities to one another and our world, inviting us to think how we might craft a new and more reverent way of being in the future. Profoundly important contribution to contemporary philosophy.