Critical Theory in the Twilight of Nature : Recognition, Aesthetics, and Nonhuman Expression

This book offers a new discourse-theoretical framework for understanding the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of our relationship to nature by drawing on the tradition of Critical Theory. It is intended for scholars and graduate students in political theory, philosophy, Critical Theory, and environmental humanities.

This book offers a new discourse-theoretical framework for understanding the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of our relationship to nature by drawing on the tradition of Critical Theory. It traces an overlooked thread in the works of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Adorno—one that shows how nonhuman beings can make normative claims on us not through language, but through visible, audible, and tactile forms of expression. By recovering this thread, this text proposes an alternative approach to recognition and agency that does not exclusively rely on linguistic mediation. In doing so, it links aesthetics and ethics in an original way, offering an important contribution to environmental political theory. The book also offers a critical response to the limitations of current communicative models—particularly those shaped by the legacy of Habermas and argues for a broader conception of communication that includes nonhuman forms of expression. Rather than treating nature as a system to be described or a resource to be managed, it explores how natural beings appear to us as expressive presences—capable of evoking care, respect, and responsibility. It is intended for scholars and graduate students in political theory, philosophy, Critical Theory, and environmental humanities. Individual chapters are suitable for advanced seminars on the philosophical foundations of ecological thought and discourse ethics.