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Connects the work of Merleau-Ponty to environmental studies.
This richly diverse collection looks at the contemporary relevance of the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to environmental issues and builds a coherent philosophical ecology based on his thought. The contributors describe and analyze relations within the natural world by focusing on the centrality of relations in Merleau-Ponty's work; his concept of the bond between humanity and nature; and his novel philosophies of perception, embodiment, and "wild" Being. Eco-phenomenologies of living places such as Central Park in New York City, Midwestern farmlands, and communal household dwellings of Pacific Northwest Coast people are closely examined. The contributors also explore Merleau-Ponty's philosophy for environmental ethics and develop notions such as vital values, somatic empathy, and interspecies sociality.
"For the environmental philosopher with little or no previous knowledge of Merleau-Ponty, the book would provide a challenging introduction to the multiplicity of interpretations of his thought, related, sometimes directly, sometimes tangentially, to the issues of environmental philosophy … these essays all deal with lived experience of nature, or how it is that there is nature for us." — Environmental Ethics
"I like the way that serious Merleau-Ponty scholarship and a rigorously phenomenological approach are paired with the practical concerns, often illustrated in concrete detail, about the environment." — Phillip McReynolds, Penn State at University Park
Abbreviations
Introduction
PART ONE. BUILDING, DWELLING, LIVING—BORDERING ON THE NATURAL
1. A Little Knowledge of Dangerous Things: Human Vulnerability in a Changing Climate
Robert Kirkman
2. An Inquiry into the Intercorporeal Relations Between Humans and the Earth
Kenneth Liberman
3. The Liminal World of the Northwest Coast
Patricia M. Locke
4. Borders and Boundaries: Edging into the Environment
Edward S. Casey
5. Logos of Our Eco in the Feminine: An Approach Through Heidegger, Irigaray, and Merleau-Ponty
Carol Bigwood
6. Umwelt and Nature in Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology
Duane H. Davis
7. Merleau-Ponty, Ecology, and Biosemiotics
Maurita Harney
PART TWO. EMBODIMENT, SOCIALITY, AND ECOLOGICAL VALUES
8. Earth in Eclipse
David Abram
9. Lived Body and Ecological Value Cognition
John R. White
10."Fleshing" Out an Ethic of Diversity
Molly Hadley Jensen
11. Social Ecology and the Flesh: Merleau-Ponty, Irigaray, and Ecocommunitarian Politics
Sally Fischer
12. Harmony in a Dislocated World
Jocelyn Dunphy-Blomfield
13. Merleau-Ponty’s Transversal Geophilosophy and Sinic Aesthetics of Nature
Hwa Yol Jung
14. Merleau-Ponty and the Ontology of Ecology or Apocalypse Later
Martin C. Dillon
Contributors
Index