Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Anthropocentrism: Anthropocentrism prioritizes human interests, regarding humans as central to the universe. It often places human needs and values above those of other entities and ecosystems._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Rosie Braidotti on Anthropocentrism - Dictionary of Arguments
Braidotti I 56 Anthropocentrism/Braidotti: A ‘monistic universe’ refers to Spinoza’s central concept that matter, the world and humans are not dualistic entities structured according to principles of internal or external opposition. The obvious target of criticism here is Descartes’ famous mind-body distinction, but for Spinoza the concept goes even further: matter is one, driven by the desire for self-expression and ontologically free. >R. Descartes, >Mind-body problem, >res cogitans. The absence of any reference to negativity and to violent dialectical oppositions caused intense criticism of Spinoza on the part of Hegel and the Marxist-Hegelians. >B. Spinoza, >K. Marx, >G.W.F. Hegel. Spinoza’s monistic worldview was seen as politically ineffective and holistic at heart. This situation changed dramatically in the 1970s in France, when a new wave of scholars rehabilitated Spinozist monism precisely as an antidote to some of the contradictions of Marxism and as a way of clarifying Hegel’s relationship to Marx.* The main idea is to overcome dialectical oppositions, engendering nondialectical understandings of materialism itself (Braidotti, 1991(1); Cheah, 2008(2)), as an alternative to the Hegelian scheme. >Dialectic, >Materialism. The ‘Spinozist legacy’ therefore consists in a very active concept of monism, which allowed these modern French philosophers to define matter as vital and self-organizing, thereby producing the staggering combination of ‘vitalist materialism’. >Vitalism. Because this approach rejects all forms of transcendentalism, it is also known as ‘radical immanence’. >Immanence. Monism results in relocating difference outside the dialectical scheme, as a complex process of differing which is framed by both internal and external forces and is based on the centrality of the relation to multiple others. >Monism, >Dualism. BraidottiVsAnthropocentrism: These monistic premises are for me the building blocks for a posthuman theory of subjectivity that does not rely on classical Humanism and carefully avoids anthropocentrism. >Post-anthropocentrism/Braidotti, >Subjectivity/Braidotti. * The group around Althusser started the debate in the mid-1960s; Deleuze’s path-breaking study of Spinoza dates from 1968 (in English in 1990(3)); Macherey’s Hegel–Spinoza analysis came out in 1979 (in English in 2011(4)); Negri’s work on the imagination in Spinoza in 1981 (in English in 1991(5)). 1. Braidotti, Rosi. 1991. Patterns of Dissonance. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2. Cheah, Pheng. 2008. Nondialectical materialism. Diacritics, 38 (1), 143–57. 3. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990. The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press. 4. Macherey, Pierre. 2011. Hegel or Spinoza. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 5. Negri, Antonio. 1991. The Savage Anomaly. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Braidotti I Rosie Braidotti The Posthuman Cambridge, UK: Polity Press 2013 |
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> Counter arguments against Braidotti
> Counter arguments in relation to Anthropocentrism
