Life Imaginaries, Environmental Rationality, and Dialogue of Savoirs: The Sustainability of Life

Shifting from the idea that our current ’environmental question’ arises from the history of metaphysics and its focus on ’Being’ over ’Life’--and the attendant explorations of the thought of Heidegger and Heraclitus--this book unfolds a philosophical and sociological proposal for transitioning toward the sustainability of life.

With a focus on the imaginaries of life of indigenous peoples, it moves from political ecology to a political ontology, centered on the territorial, cultural, and existential rights of various peoples of the Earth. Arguing for an environmental rationality founded on three principles--the diversity of life, a politics of difference, and an ethics of otherness--it calls for a dialogue of knowledge in a world of manifold worlds, for an historical transition toward sustainability of life on our planet.

It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, philosophy, and political theory working on questions of social and environmental justice, sustainability, and alternatives to capitalism.

Enrique Leff is Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Social Research and the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Emeritus Researcher at the National Council of Humanities, Science, and Technology (CONAHCyT), Mexico. He was the former coordinator of the Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Environment Program. He is the author of Physis, Biopower, and Biothermodynamics: The Fire of Life (Routledge, 2024), Heidegger in the Face of the Environmental Question: The Immanence of Life (Routledge, 2024), Political Ecology: Deconstructing Capital and Territorializing Life (2021), and Green Production: Towards an Environmental Rationality (1995).