Description
Book SynopsisChallenging the normalization of a capitalist reality in which environmental destruction and catastrophe have become second nature', Towards a Critical Theory of Nature offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current crisis via the work of the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on core Marxist concepts to confirm humanity's central place in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers of the Frankfurt school, including, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, and Alfred Schmidt, are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural.
Further theoretical claims and practical consequences of a critical theory of nature challenge other
Trade Review
While the Dialectic of Enlightenment is often dismissed for its supposed pessimistic dead-end, this book shows how Adorno’s approach allows one to scrutinize environmental catastrophes in a critical and reflexive manner while highlighting the political and ethical implications contained therein. * Alexander M. Stoner, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Northern Michigan University, USA *
Catastrophic climate events are already happening. Cassegård finds in Adorno a critical theory of nature that highlights our destructive behaviour even as it reminds us that we are part of the nature that we are destroying. He asks us to struggle on the side of nature to tame capitalism. * Deborah Cook, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Windsor, Canada *
Cassegård's work represents an important correction in a debate that knows so little about critical theory. * Soziopolis (Bloomsbury Translation) *
Table of Contents
Preface 1. Introduction: What is a critical theory of nature? 2: Marx’s three materialisms 3: Natural history and the primacy of the object 4: Capitalism and the domination of nature 5: Marx, value and nature 6: Constellations and natural science 7: Eco-Marxism’s return to Marx 8. World-ecology and the persistence of non-Cartesian dualism 9: New materialism and dark ecology 10: Utopia, the apocalypse and praxis References
