Tells a new history of materialism from prehistory to the present
that resists stasis, heirarchy and domination Traces a lineage of
thinkers who have philosophically integrated ideas of matter,
motion, indeterminacy, relationality and process Discusses thinkers
drawn from the ancient to the modern from the Bronze Age to quantum
physics who each offer their own kind of evidence for a world
without metaphysics or hierarchy Shows that the established
hierarchies that govern Western thought and society are in fact
contingent and performative there is no ontologically legitimate
justification for social, aesthetic or scientific domination Thomas
Nail traces an alternative history of ancient and modern thinkers
who share a radically different understanding of the nature of
matter and motion compared to the rest of the Euro-Western
tradition. From Archaic Greek poetry and Bronze Age Minoan religion
to the Roman poet Lucretius, and from German philosopher Karl Marx
and English writer Virginia Woolf to contemporary physicists Carlo
Rovelli and Karen Barad, Nail identifies a minor tradition of what
he calls kinetic materialism and its three central ideas:
indeterminacy, relationality and process. For the most part,
Western thinkers have considered matter and motion to be inferior
to more formal and static principles. Philosophers placed
metaphysical categories such as eternity, God, the soul, forms and
essences at the 'top' of a hierarchy that secured and ordered the
movement at the bottom. This has real consequences in our world. By
placing stasis above motion, this hierarchy places form above
matter, life above death, God above humans, humans above nature,
men above women, white skin above brown skin, the first world over
the third world, citizens above migrants, straight above queer The
result? Patriarchy, capitalism, racism, homophobia, ecocide. Nail
seeks to undermine this inherited hierarchy and the notion that
matter and motion are inferior. There are no fixed authorities.
This new history of matter and motion leaves the good life up to
us, whoever we may become.
General
Imprint: |
Edinburgh University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
December 2023 |
Authors: |
Thomas Nail
|
Pages: |
144 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-399-52542-8 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-399-52542-5 |
Barcode: |
9781399525428 |
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