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9781350417403

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""According to Irwin, we rely on a false dilemma when describing environmental destruction that separates nature from the human world. His book explores the phenomenological ways this represents a loss in our lives. By dichotomizing nature and culture, we view the natural world as a ""storehouse of resources,"" or pristine spaces humans enter and disturb. Contemporary living means residing in a forgetfulness about our participation in the environment, which leads to poor self-understanding, and manifests in a distorted relation to our environment. The result is this ""uncanniness,"" made worse in the technological age. He uses the term intra-action to convey that an organism ""acts within and as a part of its environment, rather than acting upon or toward it"" (p. 13). Irwin asks if, in Heidegger's estimation, we are able to overcome this uncanniness. Informed by Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the flesh, Irwin envisions an embodied inhabitation in the world with the understanding that the uncanniness may be inescapable. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty."" --M. A. Betz, Rutgers University, Camden, Choice Reviews

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Brian Irwin is Adjunct Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA. He received a PhD in Philosophy from Stony Brook University, and has published articles on phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, architecture and urban design, and the philosophy of place.

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