The Ecological Turn of Metaphisics

This course aims to introduce the new trends in French philosophy in order to show an ecological shift, important in French philosophy at least since Bergson. This ecological shift allows us to insist on the fruitfulness of the intellectual links between France and Brazil, especially between our two institutions (the department of Philosophy of University Paris Nanterre and The Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas of the Universidade de São Paulo (FFLCH/USP) in order to transform our conception of subjectivity, and show important links between philosophy and social sciences, in particular anthropology but also philosophy of technology and politics (feminism, postcolonial studies). In particular, Viveiros de Castro's Cannibal Metaphysics plays an important role, opening methodological epistemology to new understanding of relations among different cultures, and between human and non human. Approching the question of intelligibility as non eurocentred, reconsidering logos without opposing it to muthos leads us towards a new philosophy of « history » engaging the question of human evolution not as teleological progress but as rhizomatic multiplicities.

The task to define new subjectivities in the age of the anthropocene allows us to insist on an antiphenomenological trend in French philosophy, from Bergson to Deleuze, including interesting and mostly unknown thinkers, even in France, such as Gilbert Simondon, who has been recently translated into Brazilian, and Raymond Ruyer, who has been recently translated for the first time into English. While building on the results of my latest book, Artmachine : Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon, I would like to take the discussion further and show a real ecological shift in metaphysics as institutional philosophy meets the results of anthropology (especially Viveiros de Castro, who had a strong impact in France) but also of feminist (Gayle Rubin, Donna Haraway) and decolonial studies (Fanon, Glissant, Mmembe). 

The problem is to deconstruct the great Eurocentric narrative of metaphysics as Western in order to define mutant and plural subjectivities, including human and non-human, living and technical agents. This leads to a new definition of technology aswell as to a new understanding of the relationship between agency, subjectivity, art (as territorial expession) and politics. The case of cinema will be examined as crucial to understand collectiv but also technical modes of subjectivation, leading us from industrial cinema to digital networking.