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This agenda-setting collection argues for the importance of fieldwork for philosophy and provides reflections on methods for such 'field philosophy' from the interdisciplinary vantage point of the environmental humanities.
Field philosophy has emerged from multiple sources - including approaches focused on public and participatory research - and others focused on ethology, multispecies studies, and the environmental humanities more broadly. These approaches have yet to enter the mainstream of the discipline, however, and 'field philosophy' remains an open and uncharted terrain for philosophical pursuits. This book brings together leading and emerging philosophers who have engaged in critical and constructive forms of fieldwork, for some over decades, and who, through these articles, demonstrate new possibilities and new experiments for philosophical practices. This collection will be of interest to scholars working across the disciplines of continental philosophy, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, animal studies, cultural anthropology, art, and more.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Parallax.
List of contents
Introduction
Brett Buchanan, Michelle Bastian and Matthew Chrulew
1. The Surprise of Field Philosophy: Philosophical Encounters with Animal Worlds
Brett Buchanan
2. Aude Sapere: Dare Betray the Testator's Demands
Isabelle Stengers
3. Out of the Books: Field Philosophy
Vinciane Despret
4. From Field Philosophy to Milieu Philosophy
Dominique Lestel
5. Thinking with Crows: (Re)Doing Philosophy in the Field
Thom van Dooren
6. Philosophy Disturbed: reflections on moving between field and philosophy
Michelle Bastian
7. A Leibnizian Fieldwork: Zebra Stripes and the Monadology
Thibault De Meyer
8. My Place, My Duty: Zoo Biology as Field Philosophy in the Work of Heini Hediger
Matthew Chrulew
9. The Haunting Cliffs: Some Notes on Silence
Hugo Reinert
About the author
Brett Buchanan is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Laurentian University, Canada. He is the author of
Onto-Ethologies: The Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze.
Matthew Chrulew is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University, Western Australia, where he leads the Posthumanities, Animalities, Environments research stream. He is the Series Editor of
Animalities at Edinburgh University Press.
Michelle Bastian is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Humanities at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, UK. She is Co-editor of
Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge) and an Editor-in-chief of
Time & Society.
Summary
This agenda-setting collection argues for the importance of fieldwork for philosophy and provides reflections on methods for such ‘field philosophy’ from the interdisciplinary vantage point of the environmental humanities.
