Parasitic Personhood and the Ontology of Eating

It explores "parasitic personhood," an alternative to atomistic individualism that acknowledges the biological individual as a network of persistent biological relationships (a "holobiont"). It's of interest to students and scholars of food and eating, as well as philosophers considering the ontological significance of food and eating.

List of contents

Introduction 1. The Billiard Ball and the Citizen of the Refrigerator: Ontologies of Personhood 2. Consider the Parasite: Parasitism and Persistent Biological Relationships 3. Stuck on You: Parasitic Personhood 4. Socrates the Parasite: Parasitism as Literal and Metaphorical 5. Choosing All the Way Down: Microbial Agency 6. Compost, Liverwurst and Dog Spit: The Relevance of Disgust Conclusion: We're All Gonna Die Acknowledgements Works Cited

About the author

Lisa Heldke is Professor of Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College, USA. She is the author, co-author or co-editor of several works on the philosophy of food, including Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer (Routledge, 2003); Philosophers at Table: On Food and Being Human; Cooking, Eating Thinking: Transformative Philosophies of Food; and The Encyclopedia of Food and Agriculture Ethics.

Product details

• Authors: Lisa Heldke
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 28.08.2025
• EAN: 9781032711553
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3271155-3
• No. of pages: 252
• Series: Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Food
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Sociology, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Psychology, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Agriculture & Food, Environmentalist thought & ideology, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: aesthetics, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Social impact of environmental issues, Agricultural science, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Environmentalist thought and ideology, Agriculture & Related Industries, Agribusiness and primary industries, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge