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SUNY Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
Onto-Ethologies: The Animal Environments of Uexkull, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze
Examines the significance of animal environments in contemporary continental thought.German biologist Jakob von Uexküll focused on how an animal, through its behavioral relations, both impacts and is impacted by its own unique environment. Onto-Ethologies traces the influence of Uexküll’s ideas on the thought of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gilles Deleuze, as they explore how animal behavior might be said to approximate, but also differ from, human behavior. It is the relation between animal and environment that interests Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze, and yet it is the differences in their approach to Uexküll (and to concepts such as world, body, and affect) that prove so fascinating. This book explores the ramifications of these encounters, including how animal life both broadens and deepens the ontological significance of their respective philosophies.“Brett Buchanan’s Onto-Ethologies, which takes on the crucial task of elucidating the philosophical import of some Uexküllian concepts and tracking their fate in the work of three major later philosophers, is … both welcome and long overdue.” — Symposium“…this is a subtle book, a welcome engagement with a renewed focus on certain strands of biophilosophies of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on animals at a time when the so-called ‘animal question’ is moving through a whole ream of different disciplines.” — Radical Philosophy“Most interesting, perhaps, is Buchanan’s conscious attempt to bridge continental philosophy with the sciences … This book will likely prove exciting for those interested in the environmental thinking of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze.” — Environmental PhilosophyBrett Buchanan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Laurentian University.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 4, 2013
Onto-ethologies attempts to bring continental philosophy together with the sciences, focusing on the ontological problem between world and environment. Central to the text is the work of a pioneer in biosemiotics, Jacob Johann von Uexküll (1864-1944) and his writing on the meaningful relations between animals and their Umwelt (surrounding world, environment).
Uexküll understood nature as a composition of sights and sounds. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning is well worth reading. Here's a quote—a favourite of mine because it's full of bubbles:
Buchanan writes: "Uexküll noted that animals of all levels, from microorganisms to human animals are capable of discerning meaning from environmental cues beyond a purely instinctual reaction.” On this view, animals are no longer simply passive objects. Animals are active meaning makers. Buchanan goes on to explore how Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze have interpreted the work of Uexküll.
Particularly useful for me is the author's explanation of the concept of world in terms of how Heidegger applies it to set up a distinction between Dasein (human being) and non-human animals: The stone (inanimate object) is worldless or without world; the animal is poor in world; and Dasein can shape, inform, or make the world. Of this, Buchanan asks an important question: What does it mean to have a world?
Onto-ethologies is a helpful little companion text for working through Heidegger's ideas on animality in his Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and/or developing a more comprehensive understanding of Heidegger's views on world. Scholars of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze will also benefit, I would think, especially from Buchanan's discussion on affect and environment.
Buchanan gets at concepts that ought to be framed and identified properly when thinking about animals and ethics. Helpful when sketching out arguments for why animals belong in our moral community instead of outside.
The question I always end up asking myself when thinking about animals and rights is this: Why does a corporation hold the right to personhood but my dog can't have the same? Dogs breathe, corporations do not. I don't get it...
As a wise dolphin once said: So long and thanks for all the fish!
Uexküll understood nature as a composition of sights and sounds. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning is well worth reading. Here's a quote—a favourite of mine because it's full of bubbles:
We begin such a stroll on a sunny day before a flowering meadow in which insects buzz and butterflies flutter, and we make a bubble around each of the animals living in the meadow. The bubble represents each animal's environment and contains all the features accessible to the subject. As soon as we enter into one such bubble, the previous surroundings of the subject are completely reconfigured. Many qualities of the colorful meadow vanish completely, others lose their coherence with one another, and new connections are created. A new world arises in each bubble.
Buchanan writes: "Uexküll noted that animals of all levels, from microorganisms to human animals are capable of discerning meaning from environmental cues beyond a purely instinctual reaction.” On this view, animals are no longer simply passive objects. Animals are active meaning makers. Buchanan goes on to explore how Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze have interpreted the work of Uexküll.
Particularly useful for me is the author's explanation of the concept of world in terms of how Heidegger applies it to set up a distinction between Dasein (human being) and non-human animals: The stone (inanimate object) is worldless or without world; the animal is poor in world; and Dasein can shape, inform, or make the world. Of this, Buchanan asks an important question: What does it mean to have a world?
Onto-ethologies is a helpful little companion text for working through Heidegger's ideas on animality in his Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and/or developing a more comprehensive understanding of Heidegger's views on world. Scholars of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze will also benefit, I would think, especially from Buchanan's discussion on affect and environment.
Buchanan gets at concepts that ought to be framed and identified properly when thinking about animals and ethics. Helpful when sketching out arguments for why animals belong in our moral community instead of outside.
The question I always end up asking myself when thinking about animals and rights is this: Why does a corporation hold the right to personhood but my dog can't have the same? Dogs breathe, corporations do not. I don't get it...
As a wise dolphin once said: So long and thanks for all the fish!
November 20, 2013
Incredibly clear analysis and interpretation of Uexkull's thought as it influences the ontologies of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze. Buchanan is able to perform a sort of comparative ontology between these figures using their reactions to Uexkull's theories. He maintains a clear distinction between Uexkull's thought and how it is taken up and modified by the philosophers, thus providing a helpful analysis of the animal's place in each of these thinkers' theories. This is also one of the clearest explications/interpretations of some of Deleuze's core concepts that I have read, especially as they relate to the organism.
September 2, 2014
Brett Buchanon:"Onto-Ethologies"
A revue by
Carl Christian Glosemeyer Andersen
PhD, UiO, Norway.
Lecturer at Nansenskolen -The Humanistic Academy of Norway.
Brett Buchanan has written a brilliant philosophical review of Jacob von Uexküll's concept 'Umwelt' and its development in The history of Ideas and use by some of the most important European philosophers in the last century.
'Umwelt' is Uexküll's ethological term for an animal species' 'subjective experience of the world' and how this 'inner, animal world' is developed through the individual species-specific senses and sensory qualities.
The concept of 'Umwelt' has been inspiring, and further developed in different directions by the German fundamental ontologist Martin Heidegger, the two French phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty and the postmodern philosopher Deleuze.
Brett Buchanan has in his book a critical review of each philosopher's thinking and understanding of the term 'Umwelt' in light of the author Uexküll himself. The book is very enlightening and philosophical inspiring and is, in my opinion, an important contribution to the understanding of animal and human perception, phenomenology and the inner experience of the 'world'.
I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cognitive ethology, psychology and philosophy.
July 12, 2014
A truly impressive synthesis of these philosophers as it relates to being and the Umwelt - that beings sing the melody of themselves.
It is a dialectic, as Deleuze says: "A living being is not only defined genetically, by the dynamisms which determine its internal milieu, but also ecologically, by the external movements which preside over its determination within an extensity" (173). Consciousness is a manifestation of an Umwelt:"the Umwelt underlies the possibility of consciousness and, as such, an organism’s Umwelt provides a more profound and universal depiction of the living being" (134).
It is a dialectic, as Deleuze says: "A living being is not only defined genetically, by the dynamisms which determine its internal milieu, but also ecologically, by the external movements which preside over its determination within an extensity" (173). Consciousness is a manifestation of an Umwelt:"the Umwelt underlies the possibility of consciousness and, as such, an organism’s Umwelt provides a more profound and universal depiction of the living being" (134).
September 8, 2013
Great analysis of some very very complex thinking.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews