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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
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
Working on the house has started to feel like an ongoing dialogue. Rather than imposing our preconceived ideas onto a bunch of inert matter, we often find ourselves asking, What does the house want? People who visit sometimes remark on the special feel of the place. They’ll ask, How did you make this house so cozy? The answer, as Bennett has shown
... See moreMorgan Meis • The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things
When we claim that there is, on one side, a natural world and, on the other, a human world, we are simply proposing to say, after the fact, that an arbitrary portion of the actors will be stripped of all action and that another portion, equally arbitrary, will be endowed with souls
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
I saw a tree whose every little branch expanded and swelled with sympathy for the sun,” she writes. “I was made distinctly aware of the presence of something kindred to me.” Ailanthus altissima is often considered an invasive species. Bennett’s musings have an ethical component: if a nuisance tree, or a dead tree, or a dead rat is my kin, then... See more
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
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
Stuff has agency. Inanimate matter is not inert. Everything is always doing something