The distortion of nature's image : reification and the ecological crisis / Damian Gerber.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gerber, Damian, 1988- author.

Series:

SUNY series in new political science

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Global environmental change--Social aspects.

Global environmental change.

Human ecology.

Nature--Effect of human beings on.

Nature.

Social ecology.

Capitalism--Environmental aspects.

Capitalism.

Physical Description:

xvii, 225 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019]

Summary:

Illustrates how the notion of an ecological society remains a decisively political question. The global ecological crisis is upon us. From global warming to the long-term implications of ocean acidification, air and water pollution, deforestation, and the omnipresent dangers of nuclear technology the future of our planetary home is threatened. Yet in the midst of the unfolding crisis, the conventional ideologies of the twentieth century and their representations of nature remain unchallenged by both the defenders of capitalism and capitalism's most radical critics. The Distortion of Nature's Image illustrates how the anti-naturalism of late capitalist society, in which nature is reified into the emptiness of mere matter, simply a thing to be dominated, is subtly complemented by the failure of the Left to go both beyond the historic limitations of Marx's ninteenth-century viewpoint and beyond anarchism's blind faith in "natural law." However, an alternative for comprehending nature and the ecological crisis as historical and social phenomena remains open in the dialectical naturalism of Western Marxism and Murray Bookchin's social ecology. By examining in closer detail how Bookchin's social ecology politicizes the concept of nature, as well as how precursory models in Western Marxist thought provide a foundation for this, Damian Gerber illustrates how the notion of an ecological society remains a decisively political question. Damian Gerber is Lecturer at the University of Queensland and the Australian Catholic University.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Anti-Naturalism, the Bourgeois Enlightenment, and the Modern Origins of a Dialectical Naturalism p. 25

The Becoming of Nature p. 25

Epistemology and the Bourgeois Image of Nature p. 27

The Kantian "Block" and the Distancing of Reason from Nature p. 30

An Alternative Perspective on Kant: Schiller's Aesthetic Letters p. 35

Fichte's Nature-Concept as the Non-Ego p. 38

"The Struggle of Spirit with Itself" p. 42

Hegel's Critique of the Concept of Natural Law p. 45

The Representation of Nature as Reification p. 49

Hegel's Doctrine of the Notion p. 55

The Anti-Naturalism of "Spirit" and the Limits of Hegel's Idealism p. 63

Feuerbachian Interlude p. 67

Chapter 2 Nature in Marx and Anarchism p. 71

Marx and the Historicization of Nature p. 71

The Younger Marx's Naturalism p. 73

The Concept of Nature in Marx's Middle Period and the Ethical Dimension of Marx's Anti-Naturalism p. 77

Beyond the Limits of Marx's Nineteenth Century p. 84

Post-Proudhonian Anarchism and the Persistence of Mythopoeic Naturalism p. 87

Nature Against Itself: The Contradictions of Bakunin's "Natural Human Society" p. 89

The Ambiguities or Kropotkin's Concept of "Anarchist Morality" p. 96

Digression: On the Historical Scars of Nature Philosophy p. 105

The Self-Contradictory Historicism of Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid" Thesis p. 107

Naturalism as Politics p. 110

The Determinate Negation of Kropotkin's Theory of Society p. 115

The Necessity of a Dialectical Naturalism p. 117

Chapter 3 Recovering a Dialectical Naturalism p. 119

The Basis of a Dialectical Naturalism p. 119

Precursory Models of Dialectical Naturalism p. 120

Bloch's Notion of "Technological Contact" p. 129

Murray Bookchin's Social Ecology p. 132

The Nature-Concept and the Anthropology of Hierarchy p. 149

Toward a Communalist Image of Nature p. 174.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438473550

1438473559

OCLC:

1048659849

Publisher Number:

99980360763