From ecological ontology to social ecology: John Dewey, Radhakamal Mukerjee, and interscalar ethics

Abstract

Dangerous evils of our time are linked with pathologies of scale. Global markets in labor and capital overwhelm democratic controls at local and national scales. Injustice is ever more deeply spatialized. To understand these pathologies of scale, this chapter enquires into the ontology of the interscalar. We argue for an ecological understanding of human and natural being, in which diverse spatio-temporal scales intertwine to generate a transformative fabric of interscalar co-being. To do this, we put the Indian sociologist Radhakamal Mukerjee into dialogue with the American philosopher John Dewey. Both thinkers made original contributions which can help build a transformative ontology of the interscalar for the twenty-first century. We call for theoretical genealogies to re-embody and replace social theory in our actual lives—lives embedded in, and emergent from, ecological being that is complex, historical, paradoxical, and dynamic in its scaling. In this chapter, we argue that these pathologies of scale require careful theoretical inquiry into the ontology of the interscalar. We argue for an ecological understanding of human and natural being, in which diverse spatio-temporal scales intertwine to generate a transformative fabric of interscalar co-being. To do this we retrieve some neglected genealogies and debates of social theory. Specifically, we put the Indian sociologist Radhakamal Mukerjee into dialogue with the American philosopher John Dewey. Both thinkers made original contributions which can help build a transformative ontology of the interscalar for the twenty-first century.