Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston School of Art, Kingston University Philosophical Fables for Ecological Thinking: Resisting Environmental Catastrophe within the Anthropocene Alice GIBSON Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy February 2020 2 Abstract This central premise of this thesis is that philosophical fables can be used to address the challenges that have not been adequately accounted for in post-Kantian philosophy that have contributed to environmental precarity, which we only have a narrow window of opportunity to learn to appreciate and respond to. Demonstrating that fables may bring to philosophy the means to cultivate the wisdom that Immanuel Kant described as crucial for the development of judgement in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), I argue that the philosophical fable marks an underutilised resource at our disposal, which requires both acknowledgment and defining. Philosophical fables, I argue, can act as ‘go-carts of judgement’, preventing us from entrenching damaging patterns that helped degree paved the way for us to find ourselves in a state of wholescale environmental crisis, through failing adequately to consider the multifarious effects of anthropogenic change. This work uses the theme of ‘catastrophe’, applied to ecological thinking and environmental crises, to examine and compare two thinker poets, Giacomo Leopardi and Donna Haraway, both of whom use fables to undertake philosophical critique. It will address a gap in scholarship, which has failed to adequately consider how fables might inform philosophy, as reflected in the lack of definition of the ‘philosophical fable’. This is compounded by the difficulty theorists have found in agreeing on a definition of the fable in the more general sense. I attend to this gap through an examination of Leopardi and Haraway’s thinking that considers their contributions to ecological thought. Throughout, I will assess the strengths and weaknesses of what I will show to be their philosophical fabulation. I compare how the ideas of each thinker can be brought to bear on the other, which has not previously been done, despite the shared foundations of some of the ideas of Leopardi and Haraway, including their philosophical resilience and commitment, which rests upon a shared view of the urgency of the need for change. The work I undertake in my two case studies will allow me to show that, despite the thinkers’ shared appreciation for the fable’s capacity to guide philosophy and their shared foundations, their work ultimately moves in two different directions. This I argue, reveals the potential for significant difference within the genre of the philosophical fable, which I suggest highlights that the form is best considered as a form of practice. Such a practice, I argue, harbours a commitment to having the courage to use our own understandings that Kant advocates in his 1784 essay "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?". 3 Acknowledgements I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to those who have given me thoughtful feedback throughout my work, including students and staff at CRMEP’s Annual Progression Seminars, and to my supervisor, Howard Caygill, whose generous support has been invaluable in facilitating my research, for which I will always be grateful. Special thanks to colleagues in the PostHuman Network and to participants, leaders and facilitators of the Leopardi Non-Fiction writing group in Recanati, and to those who have generously hosted me during research trips I could not otherwise have undertaken. Most importantly, immeasurable gratitude is due to my loved family and friends, who have always been ready to have faith in me. I am also grateful for the financial support I have received from the British Society of Aesthetics (BSA), the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) and the British Society of Literature and Science (BSLS), which enabled my research to grow in unforeseen ways, and for generous practical advice and support from colleagues in the Graduate Research School at Kingston University. 4 Contents Introduction __________________________________________________________ 5 PART 1 ______________________________________________________________ 42 The Development of Giacomo Leopardi’s Nostalgic Fabulation ________________ 42 Chapter One – Leopardi and His Work _________________________________________ 43 Chapter Two – Fictions: The Operette Morali & the Western Tradition as a Fable ______ 63 1. Leopardi’s Blame for The Disintegration of Life ______________________________________ 64 2. Human Misanthropy ____________________________________________________________ 68 3. ‘The starry heavens above’: Anthropocentricsm and Our Status in the Universe ____________ 69 4. The Pain and Fear of Facing the Unknown __________________________________________ 79 5. Our Perception of Nature’s Animosity ______________________________________________ 82 Conclusion to Chapter Two ________________________________________________________ 91 Chapter Three – Philosophical Fables and Go-Carts of Judgement: The Canti’s ‘La Ginestra’ ________________________________________________________________________ 94 1. The Transformation of Humanity’s Enemy _________________________________________ 105 2. Love, Compassion and Solidarity _________________________________________________ 111 3. The Significance of Consolation __________________________________________________ 114 4. Accepting our Vulnerability _____________________________________________________ 118 5. The Noble Response to Our Poor and Feeble State __________________________________ 121 Conclusion to Chapter Three ______________________________________________________ 124 Conclusion to Part One – Philosophical Fables of the Starry Heavens _______________ 125 The Notion of Nature as the Constraint on Leopardi’s Ecological Thought __________________ 128 PART 2 _____________________________________________________________ 130 Donna Haraway’s Speculative Fabulation as the ‘Life Story’ __________________ 130 Chapter One – Theory in the Mud ___________________________________________ 135 Chapter Two – Speculative Fabulation: ‘Camille Stories: Children of Compost’ ________ 152 Chapter Three – Natureculture and The Joyful Fuss _____________________________ 183 Conclusion to Part Two – An Earthly, Generative Practice of Fabulation _____________ 192 Multispecies Flourishing and Leopardi’s ‘Plurality of Worlds’ ____________________________ 192 Conclusion __________________________________________________________ 195 Stories for Ahuman Futures ____________________________________________ 214 5 Introduction Steer your way through the ruins Of the altar and the mall Steer your way through the fables Of creation and the fall Steer your way past the palaces That rise above the rot Year by year Month by month Day by day Thought by thought ‘Steer Your Way’, Leonard Cohen This thesis seeks to contribute to current critical anthropocene discourse by revealing a less human centred way of understanding the world. In the last two hundred years, anthropocentrism has exacerbated environmental damage, making environmental catastrophes increasingly likely. No research has yet sufficiently addressed the extent to which fables may serve as an aid to help philosophy fulfil its promise of fostering wisdom and prudence. Within the Anthropocene, such a project is pertinent because it acknowledges the fable’s strength in dismantling human hubris, which underlies our damaged relationship with the living world. Therefore, this study sets centre stage the ecological thought of two critics whose work represents an effort to use fables to help philosophy to flourish, namely Giacomo Leopardi and Donna Haraway. Within their literary and philosophical works, I examine their shared reverence for fables within their separate Italian and feminist philosophies. I question how their play with form relates to their criticisms concerning the issues that have led us to the present, where the damaged relationship between humans and the natural world threaten the continuation of our species and others. By examining how they combine fabulous thinking and philosophy in their consideration of environmental catastrophes and ecological thinking, I endeavour to draw out how their philosophical fables may offer us a blueprint for better judging and living. Viewing the looming threat of wholescale environmental catastrophe appropriately as a warning that indicates an urgent need to navigate the world in a way that doesn’t cause irreversible damage, we must now attend to questioning the validity of the anthropocentric stories we previously told ourselves and, where necessary, rooting these 6 out. We must learn to improve the way we comprehend the ecological catastrophes that signify the fragility of our stories and lives. As McKenzie Wark argues, those who have led the charge in raising the alarm about the Anthropocene have been scientific workers. Despite those trained in the humanities having extensively critiqued the concept, proposing various new terms to replace it, its resonance has too readily been overlooked. This thesis takes the Anthropocene seriously as a concept that critiques the state of critical thought, that behaves as a standing rebuke of the texts and habituated traditions we have inherited. Following from this, we must break with some of critical theory’s conservative habits and look back on our archive for more useful critical tools,