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.
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).
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
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.