Ecological Community, the Sense of the World, and Senseless Extinction

Abstract How might a posthumanist notion of ecological community attempt to address questions concerning extinction? Such irredeemable losses are explicated through four aspects of ecological/community relations—material manifestation (appearances), material involvement (effects), semiotic resonance (meanings) and phenomenological experiences—that together constitute a broader understanding of ecological community that does not exempt humans from ecological effects or except ecology from ethical and political concerns. This ecological approach is further developed in the light of Jacob von Uexküll's phenomenological biology and Jean-Luc Nancy's concepts of being singular plural and the sense of the world.