Overview

Organism and Environment performs an examination into the way the contemporary life sciences are heralding a revolution of the most basic philosophical concepts of the Western world. Analyzing recent research in microbiology and evolution theory, the present book argues that these discourses are adding their voices to a growing chorus which is announcing a disruption, if not an end, to the understanding of the order of the world articulated in humanism. What does it mean to be a living substance? Are there such things as living individuals? How are living beings free? The discourses of microbiology, the medical sciences and evolution theory are revealing a living organism that escapes the limited frame that Enlightenment humanism has traditionally used to answer these (and other) ontological questions. Appealing to the theoretical lenses provided by Michel Foucault, Hans Georg Gadamer and Gilles Deleuze, Organism and Environment offers an interpretation of the way the contemporary life sciences are giving articulation to a posthuman ontological order.

Full Product Details

Author:   Russell Winslow
Publisher:   Lexington Books
Imprint:   Lexington Books
Dimensions:   Width: 16.20cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 23.60cm
Weight:   0.544kg
ISBN:  

9781498552783

ISBN 10:   1498552781
Pages:   246
Publication Date:   29 August 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction: on Inheritance and Subjectivity Part I: Theoretical Inheritances Chapter 1: Toward a Hermeneutic Approach to Biological Discourses Chapter 2: The Structure of Sight: Foucault’s Early Analysis of the Life Sciences Part II: Ecological Inheritances Chapter 3: Subjectivity in the Extended Inheritance Theory of Evolution Chapter 4: Genetic Transformation into Structure Chapter 5: The Space of Life: Reflections on the Ontological Consequences of the Secondary Inheritance Theory of Evolution Part III: Microbial Inheritances Chapter 6: Microbes Colonizing Humanism Chapter 7: Horizontal Gene Transfer: On the Ontological Consequences of the Horizontal Inheritance of DNA Chapter 8: Being One and Many: Microbial Symbiosis and Inheritance Chapter 9: A Concrescence of Inheritances Vs. the Metaphysically-Present Individual Bibliography

Reviews

The question of Life has never been more pressing than in the current context of climate change, species loss, and what is now called the Anthropocene: all of which force upon us the need to rethink questions of community and ethical responsibility beyond the purview of homo sapiens. Referencing new work on the microbiome, developmental systems theory, and epigenetics (just to name a few), Russell Winslow's book is an immensely readable and broadly informed contribution to thinking these questions anew by moving beyond the neo-Darwinian reductionist paradigm. A welcome-and overdue-contribution to the growing literature on posthumanism. -- Cary Wolfe, Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University; author of What Is Posthumanism? (2010) and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2013). Winslow's philosophical study of the discourse of modern and contemporary biology is lucid, measured, precise, and refreshing. Along with incisive discussions of figures ranging from Heidegger and Canguilhem to Foucault and Simondon, he introduces a hermeneutic frame derived from Gadamer that effectively delineates and distinguishes among a series of ontological prejudices that subtend evolutionary and ecological ideas from Darwin to the present moment. Organism and Environment provides persuasive arguments for the significant contributions of ecological trends in recent biology to ongoing debates over the cultural meanings of posthumanism. -- Bruce Clarke, professor of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, USA; co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science

Author Information

Russell Winslow teaches philosophy at St. John's College, Santa Fe.

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