Editor:
Rob Boddice
Anthropocentrism is a charge of human chauvinism and an acknowledgement of human ontological boundaries. Anthropocentrism has provided order and structure to humans’ understanding of the world, while unavoidably expressing the limits of that understanding. This collection explores the assumptions behind the label ‘anthropocentrism’, critically enquiring into the meaning of ‘human’. It addresses the epistemological and ontological problems of charges of anthropocentrism, questioning whether all human views are inherently anthropocentric. In addition, it examines the potential scope for objective, empathetic, relational, or ‘other’ views that trump anthropocentrism. With a principal focus on ethical questions concerning animals, the environment and the social, the essays ultimately cohere around the question of the non-human, be it animal, ecosystem, god, or machine.
Biographical Note
Rob Boddice, Ph.D. (2006) in History, University of York, is a member of the Sonderforschungsbereich 640 at Humboldt University, Berlin. He has published widely in the history of human-animal relations, most recently
Vivisecting Major', Isis, 101 (2011).
Table of contents
Introduction The End of Anthropocentrism
Rob Boddice
PART ONE
ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
Chapter One What is this Quintessence of Dust? The Concept of the ‘Human’ and its Origins
Boria Sax
Chapter Two The View from Somewhere: Anthropocentrism in Metaethics
Kevin M DeLapp
Chapter Three The Making of the Human: Anthropocentrism in Modern Social Thought
Richie Nimmo
Chapter Four Toward a Non-Anthropocentric Cosmopolitanism
Gary Steiner
PART TWO
RELIGION, SOCIETY, CULTURE
Chapter Five Anthropocentrism and the Medieval Problem of Religious Language
Eric Silverman
Chapter Six Vitruvian Man is a Pterosaur: Notes on the Trans-formation of an Architectural Ideal
Paula Young Lee
Chapter Seven Modernity as Anthropolarity: The Human Economy of Frankenstein
Ben Dawson
Chapter Eight Anthropocentrism and the Definition of ‘Culture’ as a Marker of the Human/Animal Divide
Sabrina Tonutti
PART THREE
SPECIESISM AND THE STATUS OF ANIMALS
Chapter Nine Are Animals Poor in the World? A Critique of Heidegger’s Anthropocentrism
Philip Tonner
Chapter Ten Speciesism as a Variety of Anthropocentrism
Tony Milligan
Chapter Eleven The Instrumentalisation of Horses in Nineteenth-Century Paris
Peter Soppelsa
Chapter Twelve Anthropomorphism and the Animal Subject
Nik Taylor
PART FOUR
HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENTS
Chapter Thirteen Social History, Religion and Technology: An Interdisciplinary Investigation into White’s ‘Roots’
Robin Attfield
Chapter Fourteen An Alternative to Anthropocentrism: Deep Ecology and the Metaphysical Turn
Eccy de Jonge
Chapter Fifteen Anthropocentrism and Reason in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Environmental Crisis and Animal Subject
André Krebber
Rob Boddice
PART ONE
ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
Chapter One What is this Quintessence of Dust? The Concept of the ‘Human’ and its Origins
Boria Sax
Chapter Two The View from Somewhere: Anthropocentrism in Metaethics
Kevin M DeLapp
Chapter Three The Making of the Human: Anthropocentrism in Modern Social Thought
Richie Nimmo
Chapter Four Toward a Non-Anthropocentric Cosmopolitanism
Gary Steiner
PART TWO
RELIGION, SOCIETY, CULTURE
Chapter Five Anthropocentrism and the Medieval Problem of Religious Language
Eric Silverman
Chapter Six Vitruvian Man is a Pterosaur: Notes on the Trans-formation of an Architectural Ideal
Paula Young Lee
Chapter Seven Modernity as Anthropolarity: The Human Economy of Frankenstein
Ben Dawson
Chapter Eight Anthropocentrism and the Definition of ‘Culture’ as a Marker of the Human/Animal Divide
Sabrina Tonutti
PART THREE
SPECIESISM AND THE STATUS OF ANIMALS
Chapter Nine Are Animals Poor in the World? A Critique of Heidegger’s Anthropocentrism
Philip Tonner
Chapter Ten Speciesism as a Variety of Anthropocentrism
Tony Milligan
Chapter Eleven The Instrumentalisation of Horses in Nineteenth-Century Paris
Peter Soppelsa
Chapter Twelve Anthropomorphism and the Animal Subject
Nik Taylor
PART FOUR
HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENTS
Chapter Thirteen Social History, Religion and Technology: An Interdisciplinary Investigation into White’s ‘Roots’
Robin Attfield
Chapter Fourteen An Alternative to Anthropocentrism: Deep Ecology and the Metaphysical Turn
Eccy de Jonge
Chapter Fifteen Anthropocentrism and Reason in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Environmental Crisis and Animal Subject
André Krebber
Readership
All those working in animal studies, cultural studies, the history of ideas, post-humanism in anthropology sociology, environmental and ecological studies, and ethics. It will appeal to undergraduates and their teachers.