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The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
Bennett describes herself as something of a minimalist—but her minimalism is driven by a sense of the agency of things. “I don’t want to have such a clamor around,” she told me.
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
A force of nature is obviously just the opposite of an inert actor,” Latour wrote
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
In 1917, the sociologist Max Weber argued that “the fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.” Ever since, we’ve tended to think of ourselves as living in a disenchanted world, from which all magic has been stripped. Bennett asks us to entertain the possibility... See more
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
Human beings have a lot of difficult work to do if we’re to learn to recognize the inherent worth of all vibrant matter.
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
being genuinely open to and affected by everything around us means that there is no picking and choosing. It is everything or nothing—the good, the bad, and the ugly
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
take perspectives that seem implausible and find the good intuitions embodied in them, and then go with it
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
“I was struck by what Stephen Jay Gould called the ‘excruciating complexity and intractability’ of nonhuman bodies,” Bennett writes. “But, in being struck, I realized that the capacity of these bodies was not restricted to a passive ‘intractability’ but also included the ability to make things happen, to produce effects.” Bennett likes to reference... See more
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
Perhaps the New Age crystal enthusiast and the experimental scientist have something in common.
Morgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
“Even if, as I believe, the vitality of matter is real, it will be hard to discern it, and, once discerned, hard to keep focussed on,” Bennett writes. “I have come to see how radical a project it is to think vital materiality.” It’s not just that concentration can be wearisome. Bennett had shown me that picture of the dead rats for a reason: being... See more