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A review by veewatson
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
4.0
I find myself agreeing with the criticisms Abram makes against Western culture and civilization and the historical splitting the human psyche. Abstractions of written languages, Platonic worldview and a highly technological society create distances in our relationship with the natural Earth and our material, animal body, is true enough. The author also writes beautifully. Some of the chapters were mesmerizing in description. Particularly, his time spent in Asia.
However, I find his foundational philosophy weak and unconvincing, too prone to repeation. His strength is in his personal experiences and his essay writing not in theory. But this is just a little bit of a critical casting in my part. Mostly, this book is needed, if not for an entire embrace of his cosmology, at least a perspective that enriches our sense of embodiment and awakes us to ourselves as grounded in the world. We are desperately needing this return to our place in nature. The havoc of our removal and our dismissal from the nested quality, the interdependence of our place in the world, is a blight that will bring a desolate Earth and soul.
*I recommend reading as a philosophy to complement Abram, Heidegger, Husserl and Merleau- Ponty.
However, I find his foundational philosophy weak and unconvincing, too prone to repeation. His strength is in his personal experiences and his essay writing not in theory. But this is just a little bit of a critical casting in my part. Mostly, this book is needed, if not for an entire embrace of his cosmology, at least a perspective that enriches our sense of embodiment and awakes us to ourselves as grounded in the world. We are desperately needing this return to our place in nature. The havoc of our removal and our dismissal from the nested quality, the interdependence of our place in the world, is a blight that will bring a desolate Earth and soul.
*I recommend reading as a philosophy to complement Abram, Heidegger, Husserl and Merleau- Ponty.