David Abram facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
David Abram
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Abram in 2018
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| Born | June 24, 1957 Nassau County, New York, U.S.
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| Education | Wesleyan University Yale School of Forestry SUNY at Stony Brook |
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Notable work
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| Awards | international Lannan Literary Award for Non-Fiction |
| Region | Continental Philosophy, Ecological Philosophy |
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| Institutions | Schumacher College, University of Oslo, Harvard University |
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Notable ideas
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David Abram is an American thinker and writer. He is known for connecting ideas about how we experience the world (called phenomenology) with important issues about nature and the environment. He wrote two famous books: Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (2010) and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World (1996). For his work, he received the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.
Abram started an organization called the Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE). He often writes articles about how human culture affects the environment. These articles appear in magazines like Emergence, Orion, and The Ecologist.
In 1996, David Abram created the phrase "the more-than-human world." He used it to describe all of earthly nature, including humans. This term became very popular in the environmental movement. Sometimes, he also calls it "the commonwealth of breath."
Abram was one of the first modern thinkers to suggest we look again at "animism." This is a way of seeing the world where everything, like animals, plants, and even places, has its own spirit or awareness. He believes our human minds are connected to our bodies and to the feelings of other living things. He has studied the traditional knowledge of many indigenous peoples. His ideas are now part of movements like "new animism" and "New Materialism."
Currently, Abram is a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School. He studies ecology and natural philosophy there.
Contents
David Abram's Early Life and Learning
David Abram was born in New York City in 1957. When he was in high school, he started learning magic tricks. This hobby made him very interested in how people see and understand things. In 1976, he worked as a magician at a restaurant and performed in clubs while studying at Wesleyan University.
After two years of college, Abram took a break to travel. He worked as a street magician in Europe and the Middle East. In London, he even explored how magic could be used in therapy. After graduating from Wesleyan in 1980, he traveled through Southeast Asia. He lived and learned from traditional magic practitioners, also called medicine people, in places like Sri Lanka and Nepal.
When he returned to North America, he kept performing magic. But he also started studying nature and how different cultures interact with their environment. He visited and learned from Native American communities. In 1984, while studying ecology at the Yale School of Forestry, he wrote an essay called "The Perceptual Implications of Gaia." This essay connected him with scientists who were developing the Gaia Hypothesis. This idea suggests that Earth's living and non-living parts work together like a single, living system. He then lectured with scientists like Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock.
In the late 1980s, Abram began to focus on how language affects our senses. He explored how words change the way we experience the world around us. He earned his doctorate degree for this work in 1993 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Abram's writings are shaped by his time with indigenous peoples. They are also influenced by American nature writers like Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. His philosophical ideas come from European thinkers, especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He has also been influenced by friends and mentors like James Hillman, Lynn Margulis, and Ivan Illich. Poets like Gary Snyder and writers like Wendell Berry have also inspired him.
Understanding the More-Than-Human World
In the mid-1990s, David Abram felt that the words people used for the environment were not quite right. Terms like "environment" or even "nature" often made it seem like humans were separate from the rest of the world. He wanted a better way to talk about our connection to everything else.
So, he created the phrase "the more-than-human world." This term means all of earthly life, including humans and our cultures. But it also shows that nature is much bigger and more important than just human culture. The phrase helps us remember that our human world depends on and is surrounded by this larger, more-than-human world. It also encourages us to be humble, as the "more" means not just more in size, but also more in importance and wonder.
Abram introduced this phrase in his 1996 book, The Spell of the Sensuous. Soon, many other thinkers and activists started using it. It quickly became a very common term in the environmental movement.
His book, The Spell of the Sensuous, helped start new fields of study. These include ecopsychology (which looks at how nature affects our mental health), ecophenomenology (which combines philosophy with ecology), and ecolinguistics (which studies language and the environment). The book has been translated into many languages, including French by the famous philosopher Isabelle Stengers.
David Abram's Other Work
Since 1996, David Abram has given talks and taught at universities all over the world. He has remained independent from traditional academic institutions. The Utne Reader magazine named him one of a hundred visionaries changing the world. He was also featured in the 2007 book, Visionaries: The 20th Century's 100 Most Inspirational Leaders.
His ideas are often discussed in academic journals. In 2001, he had a public debate with the famous biologist E. O. Wilson in Boston. Abram also gave a main speech for the United Nations "World Environment Week" in San Francisco in 2005. He spoke to 70 mayors from major cities around the world.
In 2006, Abram helped start a non-profit group called the Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE). He is the Creative Director for this group. AWE works to help people reconnect with the living Earth. They use art and science to help people feel a deeper connection to nature. They want to strengthen local communities and help them feel more connected to the natural areas around them.
In 2010, Abram published Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. This book was a finalist for the PEN Edward O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. A review by Potowatami elder Robin Wall Kimmerer said the book helps us listen to "wordless conversations" with nature. She wrote that it shows us how to restore our relationship with the Earth.
In 2014, Abram held a special teaching position at the University of Oslo in Norway. In the same year, he became a distinguished fellow at Schumacher College, where he teaches regularly. For 2022–2023, he is a senior visiting scholar at Harvard University. He also teaches a week-long course each summer in British Columbia. David Abram lives with his family in the mountains of the southern Rockies.
See also
- American philosophy
- List of American philosophers
- Socio-ecological system
