Weird Wonder in Merleau-Ponty, Object-Oriented Ontology, and New Materialism

This book connects recent developments in speculative realism, new materialism, and eco-phenomenology to articulate an approach to wonder that escapes the connected traps of anthropocentrism and correlationism. Brian Onishi argues that wonder has explanatory power for the constitution of the world and the organization of meaning. To do this, he appeals to both fiction (speculative and Weird fiction in particular) and quantum physics. More specifically, he argues that the focus of Weird fiction on impossible experiences and a feeling of something just beyond the limits of one's grasp dramatizes the speculative reach beyond the limits of our understanding. But more than a tool for knowledge acquisition, wonder is an organizing property of objects. Like the collapse of superposition in quantum physics, reality is constituted when objects reveal themselves to other objects and thereby organize themselves into complex objects. Since no relation is exhaustive, the capacity to wonder remains at a material level, and the possibility of reorganization is ever present. Ultimately, Onishi argues for a speculative eco-phenomenology with wonder as an engine for a Weird environmental ethics.

Articulates an ontological version of wonder that is not reduced to an epistemological tool Establishes a connection between Object Oriented Ontology, New Materialism, and Eco-Phenomenology Formulates the groundwork for a Weird environmental ethic based on speculative realism and Weird fiction

Auteur
Brian Hisao Onishi is an assistant professor of philosophy at Penn State Altoona, USA. His research focuses on the intersection between environmental philosophy and continental thought, with particular emphasis on wonder.

Contenu

1 Placing Wonder: Merleau-Ponty, New Materialism, and Object-Oriented Ontology.- Thaumazein, Epistemological Wonder, and Ontological Wonder.- Merleau-Ponty and an Ontological Wonder.- New Materialism.- Object-Oriented Ontology.- Placing Wonder in the Flesh.- References.- 2 Aesthetics, Causality, and Operative Wonder.- The Aesthetics of Wonder.- Aesthetics of Wonder: Rare Experiences.- Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Why Art Matters.- Aesthetic Causality and the Law of Noncontradiction.- Language and the Dramatization of Aesthetic Causality.- 1Q84: A World That Bears a Question.- References.- 3 Ontological Wonder as Operative Wonder.- Non-anthropocentric Wonder.- The End of Phenomenology and the Case for Realism.- Realism, Ontological Wonder, and Quantum Physics.- Onto-Cartography and Operative Wonder.- References.- 4 Museums, Gardens, and the Possibility for Care in Operative Wonder.- The Living Museum.- Cabinets of Curiosities.- Enchantment in the Museum.- Wonder on Display andEnchantment Gone Wrong.- Museums of Horror and Art Appreciation.- Wonder Beyond the Museum.- The Garden as Museum/Anti-Museum.- References.- 5 Toward a Weird Environmental Ethics.- Weird Environmental Ethics.- Weird Fiction.- Growing Things and Our Weird Departure.- Eco-Weird Worlds.- Speculative Eco-Weird Worlds.- Climate Change as an Eco-Weird World.- Trauma and the World of Climate Change.- Weird-Species Fields.- Weird Environmental Ethics.- The Second Door and the Invitation.- References.

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