Beyond Human Palynology to Post-Human Palynology
Two Volume Set

Book Abstract

Are theories, say, in human palynology, really so important that, as Albert Einstein once claimed, though in a different but analogous context, “[i[t is the theory that decides what we can observe”? (TE 2018) This positive view on theory can be contrasted with an opposing one by Karl Marx, who famously wrote, “[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point,  however, is to change it.” (TE 2018a)

Contrary to these opposing views (and other ones as will be discussed in the book), human palynology (in relation to theory and praxis—as well as other dichotomies) is neither possible (or impossible) nor desirable (or undesirable) to the extent that the respective ideologues (on different sides) would like us to believe, such that there is no theory without praxis (and vice versa), to be explained by the “theory-praxis principle,” the “absoluteness-relativeness principle,” the “predictability-unpredictability principle,” the “forecasting-backcasting principle,” the “explicability-inexplicability principle,” the “valuation-devaluation principle,” the “fiction-reality principle,” the “regression-progression principle,” the “functionality-nonfunctionality principle,” the “intentionality-nonintentionality principle,” the “survivability-nonsurvivability” principle, and other ones in “existential dialectics” (in Chapter Four).

Surely, this challenge to the conventional debate does not mean that human palynology, as a field of study, is not important, or that those diverse fields (related to human palynology)—such as geology, botany, stratigraphy, paleontology, archaeology, chemistry, physics, ecology, climatology, information science, technology studies, forensics, religion, political science, sociology, anthropology, and so on—should be ignored. (WK 2017) Needless to say, neither of these extreme views is reasonable.

Instead, this book offers an alternative (better) way to understand the future of human palynology (and related fields) in regard to the dialectic relationship between theory and praxis (and those in other dichotomies)—while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). More specifically, this book offers a new theory (that is, the post-human theory of palynology) to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way and is organized in four chapters.

This seminal project will fundamentally change the way that we think about human palynology (in relation to the dialectic relationship between theory and praxis—as well as those in other dichotomies) from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its “post-human” fate.