In Ontology and Closeness in Human-Nature Relationships Neil H. Kessler identifies the
preconceptions which can keep the modern human mind in the dark about what is happening
relationally between humans and the more-than-human world. He has written an accessible work of
environmental philosophy with a focus on the ontology of human-nature relationships. In it he
contends that large-scale environmental problems are intimate and relational in origin. He also
challenges the deeply embedded modernist assumptions about the relational limitations of
more-than-human beings ones which place erroneous limitations on the possibilities for human
more-than-human closeness. Diverging from the posthumanist literature and its frequent reliance
on new materialist ontology the arguments in the book attempt to sweep away what ecofeminists
call human nature dualisms. In doing so conceptual avenues open up that have the power to
radically alter how we engage in our daily interactions with the more-than-human world all
around us. Given the diversity of fields and disciplines focused on the human-nature
relationship the topics of this book vary quite broadly but always converge at the nexus of
what is possible between humans and more-than-human beings. The discussion interweaves the
influence of human nature dualisms with the limitations of Deleuzian becoming and
posthumanism's new materialism and agential realism. It leverages interhuman interdependence
theory Charles Peirce's synechism of feeling and various treatments of Theory of Mind while
exploring the influence of human nature dualisms on sustainability place attachment common
worlds pedagogy emergence and critical animal studies. It also explores the implications of
plant electrical activity plant intelligence and plant neurobiology for possibilities of
relational capacities in plants while even grappling with theories of animism to challenge the
animate inanimate divide. The result is an engaging novel treatment of human-nature relational
ontology that will encourage the reader to look at the world in a whole new way.
