The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Coda-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Key Figures

David Abram (The Author)

Abram, the author of The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, is a cultural ecologist, geo-philosopher, and performance artist whose interdisciplinary work has influenced the environmental movement in North America and beyond. Known for his works Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology and The Spell of the Sensuous, he holds a PhD in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and his academic achievements include being a summa cum laude graduate of Wesleyan University. Abram’s background is diverse and includes fellowships from respected institutions like the Watson and Rockefeller Foundations. Additionally, he was honored with a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. His expertise is not limited to academia; he is also an accomplished sleight-of-hand magician, which uniquely positions him to understand the nuances of perception and reality, a theme central to his work.

Abram’s significance lies in his ability to integrate his experiences with Indigenous magic and his ecological philosophy to challenge the disconnection between humans and the more-than-human world. His work is characterized by a sensitivity toward the natural environment and a lyrical prose style. In The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram intertwines his personal journey with a broader philosophical argument, urging a shift in perception toward a more embodied and reciprocal relationship with nature. In addition, Abram guides readers through a reevaluation of sensory experience and language. His personal experiences in Indonesia and Nepal, where he traded magic with Indigenous practitioners, inform his understanding of the nonhuman world’s agency and vitality. Abram’s perspective offers a lived experience that advocates a return to a more animistic engagement with the world. His work prompts reconsideration of the role of language and perception in shaping environmental consciousness and, ultimately, ecological practices.

Edmund Husserl

Husserl, a German philosopher and mathematician, is a pivotal historical figure whose philosophical approach is central to Abram’s argument in The Spell of the Sensuous. Husserl is widely considered the founder of phenomenology, one of the leading philosophical movements of the 20th century. Abram’s text relies particularly on Husserl’s emphasis on returning to “the things themselves” (34), focusing on the world as it is experienced in its immediate presence. Husserl’s work confronts the dualistic thinking that separates mind and world, instead emphasizing lived experience as the foundation of knowledge. Abram uses this intellectual framework to critique the modern disconnection from the animate earth and propose a more integrated mode of being.

Husserl was born in 1859 in Prossnitz, Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and he died in Freiburg, Germany, in 1938. His lifespan covered a period of significant transformation in Europe, marked by industrialization, the rise of modern science, and the aftermath of World War I, all of which influenced his thinking. Phenomenology was, in part, Husserl’s response to the crisis of sciences, a sense that the objective, quantitative methods that had brought about immense technological and theoretical advances had somehow lost touch with human experience and the qualitative aspects of life. As early-20th-century psychology became more experimental and quantitative, Husserl sought to redirect attention toward the richness of direct experience and the fundamental structures of consciousness.

By focusing on the immediacy of experience and the essential role of the body in perception, Husserl laid the groundwork for subsequent thinkers like Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, and his ideas continue to resonate with contemporary philosophical discussions, particularly around ecology and environmental ethics, as evident in Abram’s work. Husserl’s significance in the book lies in his exploration of the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt), the preconceptual lived experience that underlies scientific and reflective thought. By drawing on Husserl’s ideas, Abram underscores the need to reconcile scientific knowledge with the sensory experiences of human existence. Husserl’s influence extends beyond philosophy to the environmental movement, as Abram frames Husserl’s ideas as offering a way to reengage with the world in a manner that is both respectful and ethical.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

A French phenomenologist born in 1908, Merleau-Ponty is another key intellectual figure in Abram’s book. Merleau-Ponty is renowned for his work on perception and embodiment, arguing that the body is not just an object in the world but one’s means of having a world. His exploration of the body’s role in perception offers a rethinking of how humans engage with their environment, highlighting the body’s centrality in shaping one’s understanding and interactions with the world. His intellectual endeavors occurred in the context of a turbulent period in the aftermath of World War I and the unfolding events leading up to and through World War II. This era was characterized by a questioning of traditional values, the nature of humanity, and the structure of reality itself, influenced by the disruptions and devastations of war.

Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical inquiry can be seen as a response to the reductionist tendencies of the sciences and the existential uncertainties of his time. He sought to challenge the prevailing Cartesian dualism that separated mind and body, and subject and object, advocating an understanding of human beings as inherently intertwined with the world through their embodied experience.

His most significant work, Phenomenology of Perception, published in 1945, aimed to reorient the understanding of consciousness from a disembodied, purely cognitive function to one rooted in sensory and motor experience. The mechanization of the body and the industrialized killing during the World Wars brought about a sense of alienation and a need to reclaim the human experience as fundamentally embodied and relational. Merleau-Ponty’s ideas evolved in postwar Europe as it was rebuilding and rethinking its philosophical foundations. His thoughts represented a move away from abstract intellectualism toward a philosophy that recognized the body as central to how individuals engage with the world, a philosophy that could potentially rebuild the connection between individuals and their environments that modernity and conflict had eroded.

Merleau-Ponty’s historical significance lies partly in his influence on later thinkers and various fields, including psychology, cognitive science, and environmental studies. His writings provided a counterpoint to the dominant scientific paradigms of his time, offering a more holistic approach to human existence that remains influential. In The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram draws on Merleau-Ponty’s insights to support the argument for a more embodied and ecologically integrated form of consciousness, one that can respond to the environmental challenges of both Merleau-Ponty’s time and contemporary times. Merleau-Ponty’s thought is significant in Abram’s text because it challenges the disengagement from the sensuous world that characterizes much of modern life. His ideas support Abram’s argument for a participatory mode of perception in which humans are not detached observers but active participants in the lifeworld. Referencing Merleau-Ponty, Abram advances the idea that language and perception are grounded in the body’s sensory experience, which is essential for developing a more empathetic and responsive environmental ethic.