Levels of Organic Life and the Human: An Introduction to Philosophical Anthropology (Forms of Living) - Softcover

Plessner, Helmuth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0823283984 ISBN 13: 9780823283989

Publisher: Fordham University Press, 2019

Synopsis

The most important work by a key figure in German thought, Helmuth Plessner’s Levels of Organic Life and the Human, originally published in 1928, appears here for the first time in English, accompanied by a substantial Introduction by J. M. Bernstein, after having served for decades as an influence on thinkers as diverse as Merleau-Ponty, Peter Berger, Habermas, and the new naturalists.

The Levels, as it has long been known, draws on phenomenological, biological, and social scientific sources as part of a systematic account of nature, life, and human existence. The book considers non-living nature, plants, non-human animals, and human beings in turn as a sequence of increasingly complex modes of boundary dynamics―simply put, interactions between a thing’s insides and surrounding world. On Plessner’s unique account, living things are classed and analyzed by their “positionality,” or orientation to and within an environment. “Life” is thereby phenomenologically defined, and its universal yet internally variable features such as metabolism, reproduction, and death are explained.

The approach provides a foundation not only for philosophical biology but philosophical anthropology as well. According to Plessner’s radical view, the human form of life is excentric―that is, the relation between body and environment is something to which humans themselves are positioned and can take a position. This “excentric positionality” enables human beings to take a stand outside the boundaries of their own body, a possibility with significant implications for knowledge, culture, religion, and technology.

Plessner studied zoology and philosophy with Hans Driesch in the 1910s before embarking on a highly productive philosophical career. His work was initially obscured by the superficially similar views of Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger and by his forced exile during World War II. Only in recent decades, as scholarship has moved more squarely into engagement with issues like animality, embodiment, human dignity, social theory, the philosophy of technology, and the philosophy of nature, has the originality and depth of Plessner’s vision been appreciated.

A powerful and sophisticated account of embodiment, the Levels shows, with reference both to science and to philosophy, how life can be seen on its own terms to establish its own boundaries, and how, from the standpoint of life, the human establishes itself in relation to the nonhuman. As such, the book is not merely a historical monument but a source for invigorating a range of vital current conversations around the animal, posthumanism, the material turn, and the biology and sociology of cognition.

This modern philosophical classic, long-awaited in English translation, is a key book both historically and for today’s interest in understanding philosophy and social theory together with science, without reducing the former to the latter.

About this title

About the Authors

Helmuth Plessner (1892–1985) was a German philosopher and sociologist. From 1953-59, he was president of the German Sociological Association. Three of his many books have appeared in English, Political Anthropology (Northwestern, 2018), The Limits of Community (Humanity Books, 1999) and Laughing and Crying (Northwestern, 1970).

Millay Hyatt is a writer and translator based in Berlin. Her dissertation, “No-Where and Now-Here: Utopia and Politics from Hegel to Deleuze,” received the University of Southern California's doctoral research prize.

J. M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His writings include The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno (1992), Recovering Ethical Life: Jürgen Habermas and the Future of Critical Theory (1995), Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics (2002), and Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting (2006). His most recent book is Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury (2015). He is working on a manuscript with the tentative title Human Rights: On the Foundations of Ecological Socialism, from which the essay in this volume is drawn.

From the Back Cover

“This twentieth-century work was a pioneering effort to articulate an alternative to mechanistic-reductive accounts of life, and especially human life. Neglected for too long, it is now available to a wider audience in a new climate, where it will have its full impact.”―Charles Taylor, Author of A Secular Age

“Outfitted with J. M. Bernstein’s orienting Introduction, this book matters not merely for historical reasons, but also because contemporary thought is returning to its premises.”―Samuel Moyn, Yale University

“Among twentieth century philosophers Helmuth Plessner stands apart, anticipating key ideas in theoretical biology and cognitive science. His unfairly neglected major work is now available in this fine translation. What a welcome moment for twenty-first century philosophy.”―Evan Thompson, author of Waking, Dreaming, Being

“The Levels is Plessner’s masterwork. . . . Its new paradigm should be regarded as belonging to the forward edge of contemporary philosophical thought.”―J. M. Bernstein, from the Introduction

Now available in English, this key work by a titan of modern thought draws on phenomenological, biological, and social scientific sources in a highly original systematic account of nature, life, and human existence. On Plessner’s unique account, living things articulate complex boundary dynamics between their insides and surrounding world, thereby establishing a characteristic “positionality” within an environment. The approach underwrites not only philosophical biology but philosophical anthropology as well, since the “excentric positionality” of humans, by which we take a stand outside our own bodies, holds significant implications for knowledge, culture, religion, and technology.

Initially obscured by the superficially similar views of Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger and by his forced exile during World War II, Plessner’s vision has, in recent decades, once again become appreciated, as scholarship has moved more squarely into engagement with animality, human dignity, social theory, and the philosophy of technology and nature.

A powerful and sophisticated account of embodiment, the Levels is not merely a historical monument, but contributes to a range of vital current conversations around the posthumanism, the material turn, and the biology and sociology of cognition. A modern philosophical classic, the Levels helps us undertake philosophy and social theory together with science, without reducing the former to the latter.

Helmuth Plessner (1892–1985) was a German philosopher and sociologist. His Political Anthropology has recently appeared in English.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0823283984
• ISBN 13: 9780823283989
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448