Philosophical Ecology

“Philosophical Ecology: Anthropocentrism as an Epistemological Obstacle is a vital contribution to the fields of Environmental Humanities, Posthumanities and Contemporary Philosophy. Interdisciplinary, complex, and multiscalar, this book addresses some of our most timely and urgent questions about our relationship with the more-than-human world, proposing new approaches to philosophical ecology.”

–Nikoleta Zampaki, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Ecology, as a descriptive science, is not only a framework for describing biological relations between living beings, but a way of thinking and cognizing entities in transcendental terms. This way of thinking cannot be limited to the descriptive realm because it implies an ontological and epistemological revolution that can no longer be ignored. In this sense, it is essential to speak of a philosophical ecology, which is not to be confused with a fundamentalist view of ecology or as a way of making the descriptive descend into the prescriptive. Rather, the point is to take the form—eco-logical thinking—to inaugurate a different mindset that can be applied to different contexts. In this book, Roberto Marchesini explores the fundamental principles of ecological thinking and shows how they can yield far-reaching philosophical change. He also explores how our way of thinking about reality has influenced our inability to fully understand the current ecological crisis and to become aware of the urgencies it poses.

Roberto Marchesini is Director of School of Human-Animal Interactions and the Center for the Study of Posthumanist Philosophy, both based in Bologna, Italy.