Beschreibung:
<jats:p>In the last few decades an entirely new conception of the material world has emerged. Here, philosopher <jats:bold>Manuel DeLanda</jats:bold>, whose work has become synonymous with this ‘new materialism’, introduces this novel understanding of materiality. Like any other conceptual framework, it has precedents in the history of philosophy ‐ the work of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza is a good example ‐ but only recently has it become coherently articulated with science and technology. Gone is the Aristotelian view that matter is an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside (transcendent essences), as well as the Newtonian view in which an obedient materiality simply follows general laws and owes all its powers to those transcendent laws. In place of this, we can now conceptualise an active matter endowed with its own tendencies and capacities, engaged in its own divergent, open‐ended evolution, animated from within by immanent patterns of being and becoming.</jats:p>