Overview

The Animate World: Posthuman Ontologies argues for the necessity of a post-humanism grounded in a vital ontology, in contrast to the nihilist ontological positions and assumptions of a range of existing post and anti-humanisms. Still, the book affirms both the normative imperative and technological tendency that humanism is unsustainable and that technological developments are cumulatively pointing towards a surpassing of the human, conceptually and physically. Based in process philosophy, the post-human ontology is offered as an alternative philosophical grounding for post-humanism for an ethics and politics of ecological flourishing rather than exploitation of nature. Sean Watson critiques the existing nihilist ontological approaches to the post-human, which he argues are complicit with neoliberal, digital capitalism and its ideological justifications. In doing so, he conceives of an ontology of generative ethics and politics, capable of addressing the overwhelming accumulation of crises that Bernard Stiegler identified as the destruction of the future.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sean Watson (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Rowman & Littlefield
Dimensions:   Width: 15.40cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 23.20cm
Weight:   0.640kg
ISBN:  

9781538169773

ISBN 10:   1538169770
Pages:   338
Publication Date:   02 April 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Is the Universe Alive or Dead: The Problem with Ontological Nihilism 1. The Post-Structuralist and Cognitive-Behavioural Origins of Critical Posthumanism 2. Transhumanism: The Post-Biological Ideology of Digital Capitalism 3. Speculative Posthumanism 4. The Libidinal Economy of Nihilist Posthumanism 5. The Culture of Nihilism 6. Indigenous Animism and the Decolonisation of Philosophy 7. The Posthuman Earth 8. Becoming Ecological/Posthumanist 9. Animist Praxis 10 Scientific Realism or Animism: The Physics and Metaphysics of the Anthropocene 11. Ontological Nihilism and the Thanatopolitics Afterword: On Animism, Metaphysics, and those Tempted to Invoke the Spectre of Romantic Reaction Bibliography About the Author

Reviews

Watson disrupts continental philosophy in the same way that Graeber unsettled anthropology. This book is too late to prevent the destruction of the world, but just in time for those who will put it back together again. It is a eulogy for the world that was (and could have been), and a manual for ways of being in the world that will follow. Watson provides a foundation for rigorous thinking and inquiry in the daunting project of rehabilitating the pathological ontologies of the less-than-human. -- Tyson Yunkaporta, Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University, Australia, and author of <i>Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World</i>

Author Information

Sean Watson is Associate Head of the Department of Health and Social Science at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He has been an academic for over 30 years. He has taught, and occasionally published on, aspects of European philosophy, and metaphysics throughout that time. He lives on an old Scottish fishing boat.

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