ABSTRACT
This contribution proposes the root metaphor ‘attunement’ for understanding ‘fittingness’ in an ecological context. It develops a surprising parallel between the Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988), who recapitulated his ground-breaking theological aesthetics under the heading ‘Christian attunement’, and contemporary ecological thinker Timothy Morton, who uses the same aesthetic term ‘attunement’ to evoke an alternative relational ontology and critical epistemology, with fundamental eco-ethical implications. The analysis undertaken brings to the fore how both authors share a similar account of attunement, which implies a participatory ontology/epistemology, a particular disposition and a transformative dynamics. This leads to a critical evaluation of the ecological–ethical potential of attunement, focusing upon relationality, virtue and agency.
