The Animate World

Name: The Animate World
Price: 190 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781538169773

Posthuman Ontologies

Sean Watson (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK)

$190

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Rowman & Littlefield
02 April 2026

Philosophy; Humanist & secular alternatives to religion

Series: Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political

The Animate World: Posthuman Ontologies argues for the

necessity of a post-humanism grounded in a vital ontology, in contrast

to the nihilist ontological positions and assumptions of a range of

existing post and anti-humanisms.

Still, the book affirms

both the normative imperative and technological tendency that humanism

is unsustainable and that technological developments are cumulatively

pointing towards a surpassing of the human, conceptually and physically.

Based in process philosophy, the post-human ontology is offered as an

alternative philosophical grounding for post-humanism for an ethics and

politics of ecological flourishing rather than exploitation of nature.

Sean Watson critiques the existing nihilist ontological approaches to

the post-human, which he argues are complicit with neoliberal, digital

capitalism and its ideological justifications. In doing so, he conceives

of an ontology of generative ethics and politics, capable of addressing

the overwhelming accumulation of crises that Bernard Stiegler

identified as the destruction of the future.

By: Sean Watson (University of the West of England Bristol UK)
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 640g
ISBN: 9781538169773
ISBN 10: 1538169770
Series: Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political
Pages: 338
Publication Date: 02 April 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Is the Universe Alive or Dead: The Problem with Ontological Nihilism 1. The Post-Structuralist and Cognitive-Behavioural Origins of Critical Posthumanism 2. Transhumanism: The Post-Biological Ideology of Digital Capitalism 3. Speculative Posthumanism 4. The Libidinal Economy of Nihilist Posthumanism 5. The Culture of Nihilism 6. Indigenous Animism and the Decolonisation of Philosophy 7. The Posthuman Earth 8. Becoming Ecological/Posthumanist 9. Animist Praxis 10 Scientific Realism or Animism: The Physics and Metaphysics of the Anthropocene 11. Ontological Nihilism and the Thanatopolitics Afterword: On Animism, Metaphysics, and those Tempted to Invoke the Spectre of Romantic Reaction Bibliography About the Author

Sean Watson is Associate Head of the Department of Health and Social Science at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He has been an academic for over 30 years. He has taught, and occasionally published on, aspects of European philosophy, and metaphysics throughout that time. He lives on an old Scottish fishing boat.

Reviews for The Animate World: Posthuman Ontologies

Watson disrupts continental philosophy in the same way that Graeber unsettled anthropology. This book is too late to prevent the destruction of the world, but just in time for those who will put it back together again. It is a eulogy for the world that was (and could have been), and a manual for ways of being in the world that will follow. Watson provides a foundation for rigorous thinking and inquiry in the daunting project of rehabilitating the pathological ontologies of the less-than-human. -- Tyson Yunkaporta, Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University, Australia, and author of <i>Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World</i>