Elemental Complexity and Relational Vitality: The Relevance of Nomadic Thought for Contemporary Science

Abstract

This chapter begins with a discussion of the “knowing” subject as multiplicity, process, and becoming. It proposes an alternative vision of both the thinking subject, of his or her evolution, and of the structure of thinking. It develops this insight in two parallel directions: the first is a sociopolitical critique of the identity politics of the allegedly universal subject of knowledge. The second is a more conceptual critique of the rationalist takes of subjectivity but also of what it means to think at all. The remainder of the chapter discusses the decentering of anthropocentrism, which is one of the effects of the scientific advances of today; the theoretical and methodological implications of the postanthropocentric shift for the practice of science; an anti-Oedipal approach to the question of intergenerational ethics; and the Deleuzian-Nietzschean perspective ethics.