From Individuality to Ecological Attunement in Whitehead and Deleuze
Loading...
Date
2018-04-10
Authors
Duvernoy, Russell
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
My dissertation explores the ecological implications of a process metaphysics, focusing in particular on subjectivity. Primarily using the work of Whitehead and Deleuze, I explore how taking a process metaphysics seriously undoes the assumption that an individual self is a discretely bounded and independent subject. I argue that this framework troubles expansive identifications of the self with a unified whole that one finds in some metaphysically inflected strands of environmental thought (for example Deep Ecology). Instead, it encourages an orientation towards the qualitative and affective aspects of micro-relational moments, since these are the most ‘real’ metaphysically. Macro-level entities such as the self (as well as other ‘wholes’) are understood as abstractions from these primary occasions. I consider the existential impacts of taking these views seriously, in particular with regard to the transformed standing of tertiary or affective qualities that follows from the metaphysical view developed.
Description
Keywords
Deleuze, Gilles, Ecology, Process metaphysics, Subjectivity, Whitehead, Alfred North