Becoming animal
by David Abram · first published 2010
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
A phenomenological look at how surroundings and the natural world shape humans, drawing on Merleau-Ponty and field anthropology; suits readers curious about ecology, embodiment and Enlightenment critiques.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we've inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Eart
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…poorly read in the field, and won't come to a judgement on the basis of a summary. From another angle, I enjoy (if don't quite know what to make of) David Abram's critique of the Enlightenment in his Becoming Animal and (more particularly) The Spell of the Sensuous. His target is really disembodied/symbolic thinking as such, but the Enlightenment might be considered a (proclaimed) victory of that line of human cognitive…
on “The Myths of Enlightenment” ↗There's a book called The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram, and a sequel called Becoming Animal, that I think are relevant. They aren't based on neuroscience but philosophy (mostly Merleau-Ponty phenomenology, a little bit of McLuhan, plus an interesting critique of alphabetic writing) and some…
on “This Is Your Brain on Nature” ↗Appreciated the David Abram callout. His work is worth reading if you've explored the space of how our lives emerge from our environments. "Becoming Animal" is an interesting read.
on “On how to grow an idea” ↗…Spirituality by Ken Wilber The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter by Rupert Spira Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗I agree. You should check out “Becoming Animal” and “The Spell of the Sensuous”, both by David Abram
on “Are animals conscious? New research” ↗