A new understanding of the Anthropocene that is based on mutual transformation with nature
rather than control over nature. We have been told that we are living in the Anthropocene a
geological era shaped by humans rather than by nature. In Enlivenment German philosopher
Andreas Weber presents an alternative understanding of our relationship with nature arguing
not that humans control nature but that humans and nature exist in a commons of mutual
transformation. There is no nature-human dualism he contends because the fundamental
dimension of existence is shared in what he calls aliveness. All subjectivity is
intersubjectivity. Self is self-through-other. Seeing all beings in a common household of
matter desire and imagination an economy of metabolic and economic transformation is
enlivenment.” This perspective allows us to move beyond Enlightenment-style thinking that
strips material reality of any subjectivity. To take this step Weber argues we need to
supplant the concept of techné with the concept of poiesis as the element that brings forth
reality. In a world not divided into things and ideas culture and nature reality arises from
the creation of relationships and continuous fertile transformations any thinking in terms of
relationships comes about as a poetics. The self is always a function of the whole the whole
is equally a function of the individual. Only this integrated freedom allows humanity to
reconcile with the natural world. This first English edition of Enlivenment has been expanded
and updated from the German edition.
