ONLINE FIRST
published on September 16, 2023
Robert Booth
https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil2023913132
On the Dubious Merit of Ontologizing Bohr
Reading Barad (Diffractively) with Merleau-Ponty
Despite thinking that an appropriately nonanthropocentric approach to the more-than-human world requires understanding phenomena to be ontologically basic, Karen Barad engages with phenomenology only fleetingly. Here, I suggest that Barad ought to take Maurice Merleau-Ponty¡¯s phenomenology more seriously for two reasons. First, Barad¡¯s objections to his prospects for a suitably nonanthropocentric phenomenology rely upon a misdirected charge of representationalism. Second, Merleau-Ponty offers theoretical and methodological tools corrective to our tendencies toward metaphysical and behavioral colonialism which align with Barad¡¯s project, yet, insofar as her agential realism remains committed to a very strong metaphysical naturalism, appear unavailable to her.