IAS Book Launch: Nourishment - A Philosophy of the Political Body

Nourishment: A Philosophy of the Political Body

Corine Pelluchon in conversation with Mary C. Rawlinson

This book seeks to replace the philosophy of the subject, underlying contemporary contractualism, with another philosophy. The ethics of vulnerability, which emphasizes the category of passivity, is the first phase in this philosophy of corporality, further supplemented in Nourishment by a philosophy of “living from,” which takes the materiality of our existence and our corporeality seriously: hunger, oikos, space, birth. It also stresses the importance of enjoyment and taste.

Starting from eating that highlights a relational subject that has always an impact upon other beings, including animals, Corine Pelluchon provides a political theory in which the protection of the biosphere and its beauty, and the taking into account of animals’ interests enter politics. She also indicates the conditions of a reconstruction of democracy.

Based on a radical phenomenology of sensations, this book takes inspiration from the French philosophers who were able to suggest an alternative to Heidegger’s ontology of concern, such as Emmanuel Levinas, Henri Maldiney, Paul Ricoeur. Going beyond the dualisms between nature and culture, subject and object, mind and body, reason and emotions, Pelluchon aims to determine the existential structures that break with the philosophies of freedom that serve as a foundation for liberal political theory and explain also our difficulties to solve the ecological crisis, promote a more sustainable model of development and connect justice with conviviality.

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