Overview

This study explores the increasingly troubled relationship between humankind and the Earth, with the help of a simple example and a complicated interlocutor. The example is a pond, which, it turns out, is not so simple as it seems. The interlocutor is Jean-Paul Sartre, novelist, playwright, biographer, philosopher, and, despite his several disavowals, doyen of twentieth-century existentialism. Standing with the great humanist at the edge of the pond, the author examines contemporary experience in the light of several familiar conceptual pairs: nature and culture, fact and value, reality and imagination, human and nonhuman, society and ecology, Earth and world. The theoretical challenge is to reveal the critical complementarity and experiential unity of this family of ideas. The practical task is to discern the heuristic implications of this lived unity-in-diversity in these times of social and ecological crisis. Interdisciplinary in its aspirations, the study draws upon recent developments in biology and ecology, complexity science and systems theory, ecological and Marxist economics, and environmental history. Comprehensive in its engagement of Sartre’s oeuvre, the study builds upon his best-known existentialist writings, and also his critique of colonialism, voluminous ethical writings, early studies of the imaginary, and mature dialectical philosophy. In addition to overviews of Sartre’s distinctive inflections of phenomenology and dialectics and his unique theories of praxis and imagination, the study also articulates for the first time Sartre’s incipient philosophical ecology. In keeping with Sartre’s lifelong commitment to freedom and liberation, the study concludes with a programmatic look at the relative merits of pragmatist, prefigurative, and revolutionary activism within the burgeoning global struggle for social and ecological justice. We learn much by thinking with Sartre at the water’s edge: surprising lessons about our changing humanity and how we have come to where we are; timely lessons about the shifting relation between us and the broader community of life to which we belong; difficult lessons about our brutal degradation of the planetary system upon which life depends; and auspicious lessons, too, about a participatory path forward as we work to preserve a habitable planet and build a livable world for all earthlings.

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9781498561990

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Reviews

The expression it seems fair to wonder appears frequently throughout the book. It is an apt expression for Ecology and Existence, which encourages its readers to wonder (more or for the first time) about Sartre's philosophy, ecology, the sciences more generally, our environmental and ecological crises, hope (and despair) over the future of Earth and its myriad worlds, and the relations among all of these. Especially for those who consider themselves in some sense Sartrean (seeking intelligibility, struggling for a better future, perhaps to this point insufficiently thinking through ecological matters), this book is a helpful read. * Sartre Studies International * This book is truly unique: at once brilliant, timely, often amusing, and exceptionally rich in its references to contemporary thinking in philosophy, history, and science. Professor Ally engages Jean-Paul Sartre as his Virgil in a revealing trek through nature, from a sylvan pond to the outer rings of the global ecological crisis. In the end, while not concealing the hellish aspect of our current situation, he argues strongly and convincingly against abandoning hope. -- William L. McBride, Purdue University In 'bringing Sartre to the water's edge,' Matthew Ally demonstrates the surprising relevance of existentialism to the growing environmental crisis, and gives us a new and holistic way of understanding that crisis. There is nothing quite like this work of ecology and philosophy focusing on a single pond in upstate New York and ending with the urgent call to transform the geoculture of capitalism, consumerism, and colonialism. Deeply considered, beautifully written, and powerfully felt, it is a book to be lived with, enjoyed, savored, and pondered. Ecology and Existence is a masterwork by a mature and confident thinker. -- Ronald Aronson, author of We: Reviving Social Hope In a brilliant tour de force Matthew Ally brings Sartre to bear on environmental thought. His masterfully structured work reads like a nimble essay. He captures our imagination, bringing the conceptual toolbox of humanist thought into play at a pond. Sartre at the water's edge never turns into a Narcissus reflecting upon himself, rather, he finds his 'integrative and open-ended philosophical method' in a newly found freedom of water. Contingency, freedom, responsibility, solidarity, and liberation, are revived in the experiential lack of gravity the pond provides. Ally is a story teller and a scientifically informed philosopher with an exquisite literary sensibility. He brings natural history writing back into philosophy, contemporizing a rich tradition of Thoreau and Rachel Carson. -- Irene J. Klaver, University of North Texas The pond! Does it exist, or not exist? Matthew Ally has brought Jean-Paul Sartre finally out from the cafe and into the woods, writing a major work of existential ecophilosophy that is the climax of years of careful thinking. The field, like the pond, will be changed forever. -- David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New Jersey Institute of Technology The pond! Does it exist, or not exist? Matthew Ally has brought Jean-Paul Sartre finally out from the cafe and into the woods, writing a major work of existential ecophilosophy that is the climax of years of careful thinking. The field, like the pond, will be changed forever. -- David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New Jersey Institute of Technology The pond is the place where many an American philosopher have skipped their philosophical stones, and by throwing some of his own Matthew Ally has placed himself within this important American tradition of ecological/environmental writing. This is a very original contribution to existentialism, existentialist ethics, environmental ethics, continental philosophy, and Sartre scholarship. This is not a book on Sartre, but a book that works with Sartre. It is not exegetical, although there is plenty of that. It is what the author calls 'reconstructive philosophy,' which is a wonderful genre: what philosophers could and should have said, but never did, even if it was bubbling off the pages they wrote. This is also not an apologia, but rather a constructive and prospective work: what we can and should do with one of the most inspiring philosophers of the twentieth century. Ally confronts directly five main evident liabilities with Sartre's existentialism in relationship to the pressing issue of global climate change and environmental justice in the Anthropocene: reflexive anthropocentrism, heuristic exceptionalism, naive instrumentalism, clannish exclusivism, and philosophical machismo. Follow Ally along his trekking to find out how he unravels Sartre's inchoate existentialist environmental ethics. -- Eduardo Mendieta, Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University

The expression it seems fair to wonder appears frequently throughout the book. It is an apt expression for Ecology and Existence, which encourages its readers to wonder (more or for the first time) about Sartre's philosophy, ecology, the sciences more generally, our environmental and ecological crises, hope (and despair) over the future of Earth and its myriad worlds, and the relations among all of these. Especially for those who consider themselves in some sense Sartrean (seeking intelligibility, struggling for a better future, perhaps to this point insufficiently thinking through ecological matters), this book is a helpful read. * Sartre Studies International * This book is truly unique: at once brilliant, timely, often amusing, and exceptionally rich in its references to contemporary thinking in philosophy, history, and science. Professor Ally engages Jean-Paul Sartre as his Virgil in a revealing trek through nature, from a sylvan pond to the outer rings of the global ecological crisis. In the end, while not concealing the hellish aspect of our current situation, he argues strongly and convincingly against abandoning hope. -- William L. McBride, Purdue University In `bringing Sartre to the water's edge,' Matthew Ally demonstrates the surprising relevance of existentialism to the growing environmental crisis, and gives us a new and holistic way of understanding that crisis. There is nothing quite like this work of ecology and philosophy focusing on a single pond in upstate New York and ending with the urgent call to transform the geoculture of capitalism, consumerism, and colonialism. Deeply considered, beautifully written, and powerfully felt, it is a book to be lived with, enjoyed, savored, and pondered. Ecology and Existence is a masterwork by a mature and confident thinker. -- Ronald Aronson, author of We: Reviving Social Hope In a brilliant tour de force Matthew Ally brings Sartre to bear on environmental thought. His masterfully structured work reads like a nimble essay. He captures our imagination, bringing the conceptual toolbox of humanist thought into play at a pond. Sartre at the water's edge never turns into a Narcissus reflecting upon himself, rather, he finds his 'integrative and open-ended philosophical method' in a newly found freedom of water. Contingency, freedom, responsibility, solidarity, and liberation, are revived in the experiential lack of gravity the pond provides. Ally is a story teller and a scientifically informed philosopher with an exquisite literary sensibility. He brings natural history writing back into philosophy, contemporizing a rich tradition of Thoreau and Rachel Carson. -- Irene J. Klaver, University of North Texas The pond! Does it exist, or not exist? Matthew Ally has brought Jean-Paul Sartre finally out from the cafe and into the woods, writing a major work of existential ecophilosophy that is the climax of years of careful thinking. The field, like the pond, will be changed forever. -- David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New Jersey Institute of Technology The pond! Does it exist, or not exist? Matthew Ally has brought Jean-Paul Sartre finally out from the cafe and into the woods, writing a major work of existential ecophilosophy that is the climax of years of careful thinking. The field, like the pond, will be changed forever. -- David Rothenberg, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New Jersey Institute of Technology The pond is the place where many an American philosopher have skipped their philosophical stones, and by throwing some of his own Matthew Ally has placed himself within this important American tradition of ecological/environmental writing. This is a very original contribution to existentialism, existentialist ethics, environmental ethics, continental philosophy, and Sartre scholarship. This is not a book on Sartre, but a book that works with Sartre. It is not exegetical, although there is plenty of that. It is what the author calls 'reconstructive philosophy,' which is a wonderful genre: what philosophers could and should have said, but never did, even if it was bubbling off the pages they wrote. This is also not an apologia, but rather a constructive and prospective work: what we can and should do with one of the most inspiring philosophers of the twentieth century. Ally confronts directly five main evident liabilities with Sartre's existentialism in relationship to the pressing issue of global climate change and environmental justice in the Anthropocene: reflexive anthropocentrism, heuristic exceptionalism, naive instrumentalism, clannish exclusivism, and philosophical machismo. Follow Ally along his trekking to find out how he unravels Sartre's inchoate existentialist environmental ethics. -- Eduardo Mendieta, Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University

Author Information

Matthew C. Ally was supposed to be an ecologist. During the same semester in which he took a required course in “Temperate Forest Ecosystems,” he took an elective philosophy course called “Tyranny and Freedom.” The rest is history. He is professor of philosophy at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York and coordinator of the BMCC Sustainability Studies Project. He has published articles on Sartre’s philosophy, progressive and radical pedagogy, philosophical ecology, environmentalism, and sustainability.

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