🧠 The Philosophy of
Rick Dolphijn
Rick Dolphijn is a contemporary Dutch philosopher associated with new materialism, a field that rethinks matter, life, and subjectivity beyond traditional human-centered philosophy. He teaches at Utrecht University, a major hub for new materialist thought.
His work resonates strongly with thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Karen Barad—but he develops his own distinctive tone: gentle, ecological, and quietly radical.
🌊 1. Philosophy as Flow, Not System
Dolphijn resists philosophy as a rigid structure of concepts.
Instead, for him:
- Thought is movement, not representation
- Philosophy is practice, not doctrine
- Reality is process, not stable substance
This aligns with what Deleuze called becoming—but Dolphijn makes it more livable, ecological, and everyday.
👉 He invites us to think of philosophy less like a building,
and more like a river you walk alongside.
🌱 2. New Materialism: Matter is Alive
One of Dolphijn’s central commitments is new materialism.
In classical philosophy:
- Matter = passive, inert, “dead stuff”
In Dolphijn’s world:
- Matter = active, expressive, relational
This resonates deeply with Karen Barad’s idea of intra-action:
Things do not pre-exist their relations—
they emerge through them.
So:
- A rock is not just a rock
- A body is not just a body
- A self is not just a self
Everything is ongoing entanglement.
🪶 3. Against Human Exceptionalism
Dolphijn challenges the idea that humans are central or superior.
Instead:
- Humans are one pattern among many
- Thought is not exclusively human
- Agency is distributed across human and non-human assemblages
This places him firmly in posthuman philosophy, alongside thinkers like Rosi Braidotti.
👉 In your language:
this resonates strongly with
「物的反撲，人的退位；物的歸位，人的復位」
Dolphijn would likely say:
- The “return of things” is not revenge
- It is recognition of what was always already happening
🌀 4. Ethics Without Foundations
Instead of moral rules or universal principles, Dolphijn proposes:
- Ethics as attunement
- Ethics as relational sensitivity
- Ethics as responding within entanglement
No fixed “ought.”
Only:
- How do we move well within the world?
- How do we compose with others (human and non-human)?
This is close to:
- Deleuze’s ethics of affect and capacity
- Barad’s ethics of responsibility within entanglement
📚 5. Key Work:
New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies
New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies
This is his most influential book (with Iris van der Tuin).
It:
- maps the field of new materialism
- includes interviews with major thinkers
- shows philosophy as a living conversation, not a closed system
The format itself is philosophical:
👉 not a theory, but a cartography of thought
🌌 6. Style: Quiet, Ecological, Non-Dramatic
Unlike some continental philosophers:
- Dolphijn is not aggressive
- not obsessed with critique
- not driven by negation
Instead, his tone is:
- gentle
- affirmative
- attentive to subtle processes
In a way, he is a “minor philosopher” (in the Deleuzian sense):
- working in small shifts
- altering perception quietly
🌿 7. A Possible Translation into Your World
If I may translate Dolphijn into your language of 菊次郎十六式 / van life / being seen by things:
Dolphijn might say:
- The world is already happening without you
- Your task is not to control, interpret, or dominate
- Your task is to participate in its unfolding
Or even closer to your phrase:
👉 Not “seeing the flower in the rock”
👉 but being seen by the rock-flower
🧭 In One Sentence
Rick Dolphijn’s philosophy is:
A quiet invitation to experience the world as a field of living relations,
where humans are no longer the center,
and thought becomes a way of moving gently within matter.
If you like, we can take one further step—something I think you will enjoy:
👉 map Dolphijn × 菊次郎十六式
That would show how new materialism becomes therapy, gesture, and roadside ethics.
I suspect it will be very beautiful.
