Philosophy as Orientation

Emilio Corriero, an Italian philosopher specializing in 19th and 20th century continental thought, makes a radical intervention on the question of the Anthropocene, proposing that to rethink our relationship with nature also requires the rediscovery of philosophy understood as orientation.

Philosophy as Orientation argues that the environmental issue is a philosophical problem, showing the theoretical contradictions that must first be overcome to effectively resolve the difficulties on a practical level. At the moment in which the human being discovers himself as a natural force capable of annihilating himself and other species, it is necessary to rethink human action in terms of cooperation with other entities constituting the unique Subject of nature to which the human being belongs with his acts and his thoughts. Unlike other human activities, philosophy is capable of taking the right distance and orienting creativity, ultimately assigning a new meaning to the earth.

The book draws on Anglophone philosophical traditions and philosophers, including John Dewey, Richard Rorty, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bernard Williams, Stanley Cavell and Hilary Putnam. It puts these traditions and thinkers into a generative dialogue with continental philosophers, in particular Schelling and Nietzsche, providing a novel framework for understanding ecological crisis. Corriero's book is an significant addition to the environmental thought recently revitalized by Timothy Morton and Bruno Latour, and will be essential reading not only for philosophers but for those in environmental humanities and science studies.