Ontopoetics and the Environmental Philosophy of John Moriarty

I explore the environmental philosophy of Irish philosopher-poet, John Moriarty, particularly focusing on his use of narrative to convey philosophical principles and ideals relating to a sustainable co-existence. It is through story that Moriarty redirects environmental philosophy from a domain of knowledge in an epistemic objectivist sense to one of imagination, inviting the reader to experientially cultivate categories of perception and identification that supplement and transcend dominant forms of scientific-reductionism. Moriarty’s philomythical approach attests to an inherent strangeness, invoking those aspects of reality that lie outside the causal paradigms of human understanding, and problematizing a posture of human hubris in relation to the land. To draw out these characteristics, I locate Moriarty’s work in the framework of ontopoetics, suggesting that Moriarty is an environment animateur of sorts, opening up the symbolic and poetic potential of the landscape, and fostering relations of meaningful engagement with the natural world.