Knowing Life: The Ethics of Multispecies Epistemologies

Who or what counts as a knower? What kinds of knowing are valid? Is knowledge a product of mind, body, or something else? Historically, these epistemic questions have been answered in ways that neutralize the knowing and knowledge contributions of and toward more-than-human beings, as well as those on the margins of society considered less “human.” 

These narrow accounts of knowing perpetuate the view of living beings as passive objects of knowledge rather than knowers in their own right. We question how such views shape habits of thought that undergird ecological destruction, killing industrial-raised animals for food, widespread use of insect and plant toxins, water and air pollution, climate extinctions, ecological militarism, and the perpetual flow of living beings used for entertainment, research, clothing, companionship, and economic resources. 

In this online conference, scholars across diverse religious-philosophical perspectives explore lesser-known modes of how to know multispecies life differently, and how multispecies life also knows. Crucially, contributors offer modes of knowing life capable of transforming ethical responsiveness alongside the existent entities who co-constitute our personal experience and entangled planetary existence. 

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Image credit: Five-sensed beings in Jainism, British Library.