Deep Time, Dark Times

On Being Geologically Human

David Wood (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

176 Seiten

2018 | New edition
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8232-8135-0 (ISBN)

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The new geological epoch we call the Anthropocene is not just a scientific classification. It marks a radical transformation in the background conditions of life on Earth, one taken for granted by much of who we are and what we hope for. Never before has a species possessed both a geological-scale grasp of the history of the Earth and a sober understanding of its own likely fate. Our situation forces us to confront questions both philosophical and of real practical urgency. We need to rethink who "we" are, what agency means today, how to deal with the passions stirred by our circumstances, whether our manner of dwelling on Earth is open to change, and, ultimately, "What is to be done?" Our future, that of our species, and of all the fellow travelers on the planet depend on it.
The real-world consequences of climate change bring new significance to some very traditional philosophical questions about reason, agency, responsibility, community, and man's place in nature. The focus is shifting from imagining and promoting the "good life" to the survival of the species. Deep Time, Dark Times challenges us to reimagine ourselves as a species, taking on a geological consciousness. Drawing promiscuously on the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and other contemporary French thinkers, as well as the science of climate change, David Wood reflects on the historical series of displacements and de-centerings of both the privilege of the Earth, and of the human, from Copernicus through Darwin and Freud to the declaration of the age of the Anthropocene. He argues for the need to develop a new temporal phronesis and to radically rethink who "we" are in respect to solidarity with other humans, and responsibility for the nonhuman stakeholders with which we share the planet. In these brief, lively chapters, Wood poses a range of questions centered on our individual and collective political agency. Might not human exceptionalism be reborn as a sort of hyperbolic responsibility rather than privilege?

David Wood, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, is the author or (co-)editor of eighteen books, including Eco- Deconstruction: Derrida and Environmental Philosophy; Thinking Plant Animal Human; Time after Time; The Step Back: Ethics and Politics after Deconstruction; and Thinking after Heidegger. He is also an earth-artist and Director of Yellow Bird Artscape in Tennessee.

1. Herding the Cats of Deep Time 1
2. Who Do We Think We Are? 26
3. Cosmic Passions 36
4. Thinking Geologically after Nietzsche 47
5. Angst and Attunement 60
6. The Present Age: A Case Study 73
7. Posthumanist Responsibility 82
8. The New Materialism 96
9. The Unthinkable and the Impossible 107
10. What Is to Be Done? Democracy and Beyond 121
Acknowledgments 137
Notes 139
Index 157

Erscheinungsdatum	06.11.2018
Reihe/Serie	Thinking Out Loud
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
ISBN-10	0-8232-8135-3 / 0823281353
ISBN-13	978-0-8232-8135-0 / 9780823281350
Zustand	Neuware