Is there an enduring bond between philosophical thought and the earth, or is philosophy’s task to escape the planetary horizon? And what is the connection between the empirical earth, the contingent material support of human thinking, and the abstract “world” that is the condition for a “whole” of thought?
Real and imaginary geographies and cartographies have played a dual role in philosophy, serving both as governing metaphor and as ultimate grounding for philosophical thought; but urgent contemporary concerns introduce new problems for geophilosophy: planetary political, technological, military, and financial mutations have scrambled territorial formations, and scientific predictions now present us with the apocalyptic scenario of a planet without human thought.
The sixth volume of Collapse brings together philosophers, theorists, eco-critics, leading scientific experts in climate change, and artists whose work interrogates the link between philosophical thought, geography and cartography, in order to create a portrait of the present state of “planetary thought.”