Journey through the Anthropocene

The salvation of the human is integration with Nature

In his latest book philosopher David Abram redesigns the relationship between humans, animals and the plant world

by Mauro Garofalo

25 January 2026

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

The more-than-human world
Looking at the Mechanisms of Nature
Negotiating with all aspects of the habitat
Time and space

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

David Abram is an American philosopher and essayist, best known for his work in the fields of eco-philosophy and ecopsychology. He is one of the most important figures in the New Animism movement and reflection on the sensory relationship between humans and the natural environment. Which is no small thing at a time when America is in turmoil, and its president has walked out of all environmental agreements and organisations.

The more-than-human world

Not only that, Abram is a cultural ecologist working on perception, language and human cognition of the so-called 'more-than-human world', i.e. that part of research on intra- and interspecific languages, which works to reintegrate Nature within our societies, so as to make them 'healthier'. We interview him on the occasion of the release of his new book, 'The Enchantment of the Sensitive. Perception and language in a more-than-human world' (ed.nottetempo, €21.90 edited and translated by Daniela Boccassini). "We are human only in contact and conviviality with what is non-human, we co-evolve with other animals, wild plants, in the same way with mountains and rivers," says Abram, "our bodies are formed within a delicate reciprocity, a texture of interaction with the other, it is no coincidence that we are structured to integrate coherently with the whole of the Living, otherwise we are condemned to extinction".

Looking at the Mechanisms of Nature

The way in which Nature shows itself in that mystery we call Earth (in the words of a la William Blake) "pertains to the spectacle of life, Nature opens up mechanical processes, transforms everything - we know Lavoisier's laws - the human mind must understand, finally, that we are part of this world: human beings are creatures, like other animals, we have limits, and we participate in the living 'cosmos'. We must be able to look at the relationship and reciprocity with this Living One, not only at the processes of machines, but at the mechanisms of Nature that builds'.

For Abram, human culture and technology are a subset of a larger whole, the human world is embedded, permeated, dependent on the more-than-human world that surpasses it, for the ecologist we must return to the body, without which 'there is no access to all the other points of view that make us up', he continues: "Experience on Earth is formed through our senses: eyes, skin, tongue, hearing, nose, face, touch are bridges that receive knowledge of otherness, the landscapes of voice, shine together with the extended family with which we suffer and celebrate life".

Negotiating with all aspects of the habitat

Our species must negotiate with all aspects of the habitat, so as to evolve, this is how the more-than-human that Abram speaks of "makes us change, listen, replicate these sounds and movements of the world, which become ours - the colour of the sky, the waves of the sea, the thunder, the rustling of the oaks - they are a relationship; every sound is an encounter and an interweaving of the mutuality of change that we share with animals, plants', and if we do not want to make 'solipsistic' changes, we must also, the scholar continues, 'get out of this technological bizarreness that locks the human mind into an image of itself, and is unable to conceive of the world's extended nervous system'.

Even our language is a kind of echo, of sound and voice, with which we respond to the sound of the world, so present in indigenous cultures (in the book, the author dwells on the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty): 'These traditional societies live and learn from Nature, they do not stop at formalised regimes of writing, they are oral cultures that have stories and songs and prayers, they talk about the soil, the mountains, the wind,... they listen to the other, because they know that everything 'speaks': the human voice, the rhythms of the earth, the birds, the wind', in this sense human language is generated as a response to the call of the world, Abram finally argues: "And then we put it into form, with a phonetic system that uses an alphabet, but when we read, or write, we have a dramatic experience, in a linguistic sense, of the way we perceive rain, which is something that lives and tells the truth: rocks are alive, dry rivers are alive, so clouds have vitality, everything speaks, and we with the alphabet have turned these sounds of the world into characters, the rest is all in the silence and in the events that happen."

Time and Space

In 'The Enchantment of the Sensitive', a chapter is dedicated to 'time and space', comments Abram, 'which cannot be read without each other, our species separates (its own) time from that of other species', this mode must be overcome because 'it functions as an eclipse of consciousness, we must learn again to understand the Earth directly, everything is 'animated' in the Living, everything moves, maybe slower like the Earth, or as fast as the wolves on the ridges, but it moves'.

All parts of Nature are dynamic, acting, and creative: the water comes on a beach, so in spring we feel good. We move within a Mind that is not only ours but of the Earth, we are part of bio-regions, of a shared intelligence, the poly-rhythm of life that pulsates', the biosphere that breathes, everywhere, around us.