Enlivenment

<b>A new understanding of the Anthropocene that is based on mutual transformation with nature rather than control over nature.</b><p>We have been told that we are living in the Anthropocene a geological era shaped by humans rather than by nature. In <i>Enlivenment</i> German philosopher Andreas Weber presents an alternative understanding of our relationship with nature arguing not that humans control nature but that humans and nature exist in a commons of mutual transformation. There is no nature-human dualism he contends because the fundamental dimension of existence is shared in what he calls aliveness. All subjectivity is intersubjectivity. Self is self-through-other. Seeing all beings in a common household of matter desire and imagination an economy of metabolic and economic transformation is enlivenment. This perspective allows us to move beyond Enlightenment-style thinking that strips material reality of any subjectivity.</p><p>To take this step Weber argues we need to supplant the concept of <i>techné </i>with the concept of <i>poiesis</i> as the element that brings forth reality. In a world not divided into things and ideas culture and nature reality arises from the creation of relationships and continuous fertile transformations; any thinking in terms of relationships comes about as a poetics. The self is always a function of the whole; the whole is equally a function of the individual. Only this integrated freedom allows humanity to reconcile with the natural world.</p><p>This first English edition of <i>Enlivenment</i> has been expanded and updated from the German edition.</p>