Thomas Nail

Theory of the Earth (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

We need a new philosophy of the earth. Geological time used to refer to slow and gradual processes, but today we are watching land sink into the sea and forests transform into deserts. We can even see the creation of new geological strata made of plastic, chicken bones, and other waste that could remain in the fossil record for millennia or longer. Crafting a philosophy of geology that rewrites natural and human history from the broader perspective of movement, Thomas Nail provides a new materialist, kinetic ethics of the earth that speaks to this moment.

Climate change and other ecological disruptions challenge us to reconsider the deep history of minerals, atmosphere, plants, and animals and to take a more process-oriented perspective that sees humanity as part of the larger cosmic and terrestrial drama of mobility and flow. Building on his earlier work on the philosophy of movement, Nail argues that we should shift our biocentric emphasis from conservation to expenditure, flux, and planetary diversity. Theory of the Earth urges us to rethink our ethical relationship to one another, the planet, and the cosmos at large.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 352
• Erscheinungstermin: 27. April 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781503627567
• Artikelnr.: 61162378

Autorenporträt

Thomas Nail is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver. He is the author of The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford, 2015) and Being and Motion (2018).

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
We are witnessing a second Copernican revolution, in which the earth is not
just moving around the sun but is itself internally on the move.
Terrestrial events that we could in the past only have imagined taking
place over huge time scales are now happening before our eyes. Flora and
fauna are headed north in mass migrations, throwing tens of thousands of
species into motion around the world. Today, half of all species on earth
are on the move, including insects, viruses, and microbes. However, since
not all species are moving at the same rate or in the same way, species are
coming into contact with one another in new ways and producing new hybrids.
A new history of the earth is necessary in order to understand the immanent
conditions of the present and the kind of earth that we are.
1The Flow of Matter
chapter abstract
The earth flows because the matter of the cosmos flows through it. It is
not an unchanging or even uniformly changing substance following its own
autonomous processes. Geology is also cosmology, and the cosmos flows.
Flows of matter continually compose, cycle through, and flow out of the
earth. The earth is only a regional circulation of a much larger kinetic
and entropic process. Historically, however, philosophy, politics, and much
of geology have not taken the ongoing flow of cosmic matter seriously. This
has led to a complete inversion of what the earth is and the human
relationship to it. The earth is not a planet, but rather a process of
terrestrialization.
2The Fold of Elements
chapter abstract
The pedetic flow and fluctuation of matter is constitutive of the earth and
its elemental body. The word "earth" designates not only a planet and its
soil but also one of the four classical elements. The earth is elemental
and elementary only because the universe is-and the latter is the key to
understanding the former. If the element "earth" is mineral, then the earth
must share its elemental namesake with the mineral bodies of the cosmos. In
this sense, earth is not just on the earth, but in the universe and from
the universe. In other words, the universe was already earthly before the
earth was terrestrialized.
3The Planetary Field
chapter abstract
Matter flows and folds into elements, but these elements are in turn
distributed into celestial and planetary fields. Elements are conjoined
into atomic and molecular composites that in turn are arranged and ordered
together in a field of celestial and planetary circulation. This is the
third core concept of geokinetics. If matter flows and elements fold into
periodic cycles, planetary fields organize them all in a continuous
feedback loop. This chapter provides a geokinetic theory of how conjoined
flows become organized according to distinct regimes or planetary fields.
4Centripetal Minerality
chapter abstract
The earth is material, kinetic, and thus historical; it is possible for
different, coexisting, and mixed planetary fields to emerge. In other
words, it is possible for matter to distribute itself differently over time
into different patterns or orders of arrangement. There is no way to know
what the earth is without understanding its historical process of becoming.
If this is the case then it is possible to study this material history and
to discern the planetary regimes or fields along with the different
elements and beings that are distributed there: minerals, atmosphere,
plants, and animals. What this means is that the contemporary earth is not
defined by a single geokinetic field or pattern of motion, but is composed
of a motley mixture of everything that has ever been.
5Hadean Earth
chapter abstract
In this chapter we look closely at the kinetic patterns produced by three
major geokinetic phenomena that define the Hadean earth: meteors, the moon,
and water. The argument of this chapter is that each of these major
phenomena is defined predominately by a distinctly centripetal pattern of
motion and a geokinetics of mineralization. Centripetal mineralization was
the first major transcendental kinetic regime invented by the earth. This
first movement inward toward the center from the periphery along
differentiated layers continues today as the immanent condition of
planetary life and mineral-based technologies.
6Centrifugal Atmospherics
chapter abstract
The second major geokinetic field to rise to dominance in the earth's
history was the atmospheric field. This second type of field became
increasingly prevalent over the course of the Archean Eon, from about 4
billion years ago to about 2.5 billion years ago. Three major events define
this transition: the end of heavy meteor bombardment, the emergence of
living organisms, and the rise of a highly oxygenated atmosphere. These
events were the cause of a dramatic historical shift in the earth's pattern
of motion, from one of largely centripetal accretion and crystallization to
one of increasingly centrifugal movements of outward expansion,
respiration, and reproduction.
7Archean Earth I: Pneumatology
chapter abstract
During the Archean Eon (4 to 2.5 billion years ago), the entire planet
began to move in an increasingly centrifugal pattern of motion from the
center out to the periphery (and back). This chapter argues that the
emergence of a prevailing centrifugal pattern of motion occurs increasingly
over the course of the Archean Eon. The deep history of atmospherization is
the material condition of terrestrial motion for all subsequent eons, up to
the present. In this chapter we look closely at the kinetic patterns
produced by four major geokinetic phenomena that define the Archean earth:
sky, clouds, mountains, and life. The argument of this chapter is that each
of these major phenomena is defined predominately by a distinctly
centrifugal pattern of motion and a geokinetics of atmospherics.
8Archean Earth II: Biogenesis
chapter abstract
The second major historical event of the Archean Eon was the emergence of
living organisms (prokaryotic bacteria and archaea) with metabolism,
genetic multiplication, and natural selection. Organisms are dissipative or
vortical systems that have the distinct ability to remember and reproduce
the material kinetic patterns that produced them. During the Archean, the
entire earth erupted into centrifugal motion. Volcanoes blasted themselves
into the air, the ocean evaporated into the clouds, and organisms released
an incredible amount of volatiles and stored energy. However, by the end of
the Archean Eon, around 2.5 billion years ago, a new form of life emerged
that would change the motion of the planet yet again: plants.
9Tensional Vegetality
chapter abstract
The third major geokinetic planetary field to rise to dominance in the
earth's history was the vegetal field. Over the course of the Proterozoic
Eon, the longest eon in the earth's history, from about 2.5 billion years
ago to 541 million years ago, three major events occurred: the emergence of
eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus and organelles), the development of
multicellular organisms (such as protozoa, fungi, and plants), and the
arrival of life on land. All these events were defined by a new kind of
tensional motion inside, between, and through these organisms. But this new
pattern of motion defined by a system of held contrasts was not limited to
life alone. Life, like mineral and atmospheric flows, is not just one
discrete region among others, in isolation. Vegetal life completed,
saturated, and transformed all planetary processes.
10Proterozoic Earth
chapter abstract
During the Proterozoic Eon, the entire life-saturated planet began to fold
itself up into a vast knotwork of cellularized tensions. The birth of
cellular and complex cellular life was not just the birth of a new type of
substance "on" the earth but a new kinetic relation of the earth to itself.
This chapter argues that the emergence of a prevailing tensional pattern of
motion occurred increasingly over the course of the Proterozoic Eon. I
argue that the deep history of phytality is the material condition of
terrestrial motion for all subsequent eons, up to the present. In this
chapter we look closely at the increasingly tensional kinetic patterns
produced by vegetal bodies and that eventually defined the Proterozoic and
early Phanerozoic earth: thallus, stem, leaf, root, seed, and flower.
11Elastic Animality
chapter abstract
Animality is the fourth major geokinetic planetary pattern of motion. The
rise of animality overlapped with the end of the Proterozoic Eon as
vegetality slowly dovetailed into the Phanerozoic Eon, from 541 million
years ago to the present. The Phanerozoic Eon began with the Cambrian
explosion of diverse animal and plant life. This explosion was itself made
possible by increased oxygen in the atmosphere and mineral-rich soils
produced by vegetal life across the continents. The emergence and
proliferation of animals on the earth was the source of a radical new
regime of elastic motion defined by the ability of living matter to expand,
contract, stretch and oscillate back and forth to a degree never before
seen on the earth.
12Phanerozoic Earth I: Kinomorphology
chapter abstract
The Phanerozoic Eon (541 million years ago to the present) is our
geological eon. It began with the Cambrian explosion of living forms, the
greatest number of evolving creatures in a a single period in the history
of the earth. During the Phanerozoic, the entire planet became increasingly
elastic as the proliferation of life forms expanded, contracted, and
mutated more rapidly than ever before. The more new organisms emerged, the
faster they changed their environment. This chapter argues that the
emergence of a prevailing elastic pattern of motion occurred increasingly
over the course of the Phanerozoic Eon. In this chapter we look closely at
the increasingly elastic kinetic structures produced by animal bodies that
eventually saturated the late Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic Earth:
body, head, and tail.
13Phanerozoic Earth II: Terrestrialization
chapter abstract
The third major historico-morphological event of the Phanerozoic Eon was
the explosion of elastic sensory organs and limbs in the animal body. With
the evolution of mollusks, arthropods, and vertebrates, an enormous
transformation occurred as animal life in the seas spread to the land and
the skies. The process of terrestrial animality saturated the untapped
energy of these new regions-completing the transformation of the earth into
its full animality. The material evolution of animal morphology is also a
kinetic evolution toward the increasingl elasticity, mobility, sensitivity,
and energy expenditure of the earth more broadly. Animals are not on the
earth but aspects of the earth itself-the becoming animal and becoming
elastic of the earth.
14Kinocene Earth
chapter abstract
Today, the earth is in increasingly unstable motion. The earth, as we have
seen in this book, has always been in motion, but today these four major
patterns of geological motion have become increasingly disrupted due to the
coordinated efforts of certain human groups. What I am calling the
"Kinocene" in the final Part of this book is a new geological period not
because motion is new to the earth, as we have seen, but because of the
increasing mobility of the earth's geological strata, described in Parts I
and II. At the same time, however, we are also witnessing for the first
time in a long time a significant reduction in the net kinetic expenditure
of the planet as a whole.
15Kinocene Ethics
chapter abstract
The ethics of kinetic expenditure is not a universal ethical ground but a
hypothetical ethical ground that allows us to say not only that capitalism
is descriptively wrong about nature but that it is unethical (assuming we
want to survive), on the grounds that it leads to the reduction of
planetary expenditure (including the reduction of human and ecological
diversity). Furthermore, the ethics of expenditure relates to the material
conditions of all human society as such. If we even want to have humanist
ethics in the first place, there must be humans alive to practice it. Thus,
implicit in all humanist ethics is the assumption of planetary existence
and survival. In short: If we want human ethics, then we need to be alive
and survive, and if we want to survive then we need to try to increase
planetary expenditure (with all that entails).
Conclusion: The Future
chapter abstract
Everything is in motion. The earth is in motion because so is the cosmos.
The West's historically mistaken belief in a static or stable earth is one
of the biggest mistakes ever made. This mistake is symptomatic of a similar
belief in stasis in politics, ontology, science, and the arts. Together,
the belief in stasis of one form or another across the major domains of
human knowledge and activity is the source of our contemporary world
crisis. Movement and expenditure had always been primary. Human history was
not the progressive realization of static forms. Progress and development
in the Western tradition are dead. Human history can now be seen for what
it is: a series of kinetic patterns iterated in the material diffusion of
the cosmos itself.