Jagged Ontologies
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In this groundbreaking book, Cary Wolfe dismantles some of the most entrenched assumptions in contemporary interdisciplinary thought, foremost among them the idea that “flat” ontologies are adequate to the challenge of a robust, posthumanist pluralism. Against the fantasy of nature as an interconnected, egalitarian web, Wolfe proposes a “jagged ontology” in which species and systems intersect not through seamless cooperation but through friction, contestation, and uneven exchange. Wolfe pushes back equally, however, against the reductive tendencies of neo-Darwinian competitive individualism, insisting that what separates us from the world is also what binds us to it—a paradox at the core of all living systems, where autopoietic closure unexpectedly creates environmental openness.
Through a combination of systems theory, deconstruction, theoretical biology, and biopolitical philosophy, Wolfe develops a radically posthumanist framework for addressing the ethical, social, and political stakes of life in the biosphere. Extending his approach across disciplines and practices—from ecological theory and continental philosophy to law, public policy, and contemporary art—he lays bare the contradictions embedded in even the most progressive attempts to account for the imbrication of the human and the more-than-human. Through a detailed and long-overdue examination of the popular notion of sympoiesis and a skeptical reading of the anthropomorphism of the “new forestry,” Wolfe reveals how well-intentioned theories can undermine the very posthumanist pluralism that they claim to champion.
More than a critique, Jagged Ontologies opens onto new philosophical terrain for understanding multispecies justice, environmental responsibility, and the structural dynamics of individuation and creativity in the biosphere. Here, Wolfe offers a crucial rethinking of what it means to live and think ethically in a shared yet jagged world.
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Cary Wolfe is founding director of 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory and Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor Emeritus of English at Rice University and fellow at the Berggruen Institute. He is author of several books, including Art and Posthumanism: Essays, Encounters, Conversations and What Is Posthumanism?, and editor of Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal, all from Minnesota.
