A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene 9783031377389, 9783031377372
This volume, which is rooted in biogeophysical studies, addresses conceptions of political action in the Anthropocene an
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English Pages 479 Year 2023
Table of contents :
Foreword
Bibliography
Acknowledgment
Contents
Chapter 1: Foundations of a Critical Theory for the Anthropocene
1.1 Between Prometheism and Post-prometheism (Polemic Function)
1.1.1 The Anthropocene at the Heart of the War of Ideas at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
1.1.2 The Error of Promethean Anthropology in Terms of Modernity
1.1.3 Is Man Really ‘by Nature a Political Animal’?
1.1.4 A Problematic Political Anthropology
1.1.5 Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Critical Theory
1.1.6 Note on the Aim of Critical Theory as Seen by Hartmut Rosa
1.1.7 Note on the Relationship of Critical Theory to Karl Marx’s Thinking
1.2 Linking Land, Politics and Education to Prepare for the Future (Inventive Function)
1.2.1 Preparing for the Future
1.2.2 Forgetting the Earth in Politics
1.2.3 The Ecological Thinking of the Environmental Humanities: A Support in a Critical Theory for the Anthropocene
1.2.4 Can We Be Assimilated to Our Capacity for Instrumental and Calculating Reason?
1.2.5 What Paradigm Is Necessary for Education in the Anthropocene?
1.3 Conviviality as a Paradigm for Political Education (Creative Function)
1.3.1 Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Work
1.3.2 A Political Stance of Uprising and Consolidation
1.3.3 A Work of Convivialist Anthropology
1.3.4 Political Education in the Anthropocene
1.3.5 Criticism, Resistance and Utopia
1.3.6 A Work of Critical Theory with Proximity to the Work of the Rennes School of Political Science
1.4 The Proposed Way Forward
1.4.1 Politics in the Anthropocene
1.4.2 A Consolidation of Politics Requiring an Anthropological Shift
1.4.3 Conviviality as a Paradigm of Political Education
Bibliographical References
Part I: The Tensions of Politics in the Anthropocene
Chapter 2: Introduction to the Anthropocene
2.1 Towards a New Geological Epoch
2.2 History of the Concept of the Anthropocene
2.2.1 Publication of the Concept by Paul Crutzen in 2000
2.2.2 The Idea of Humanity as a Geological Force in the Nineteenth Century
2.2.3 Vladimir Vernadsky’s Biosphere and Noosphere at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
2.2.4 From the Gaia Hypothesis to the Emergence of Earth System Sciences
2.3 The ‘Anthropocene Working Group’ for Recognition on the Geologic Time Scale
Bibliographical References
Chapter 3: The Notion of Planetary Boundaries
3.1 A Safe Space for Humanity to Act
3.1.1 Threshold Effect and Tipping Point
3.1.2 Planetary Boundaries and Systemic Risk
3.2 The Nine Planetary Boundaries
3.2.1 Climate Change
3.2.1.1 Anthropogenic Global Warming
3.2.1.2 Prospective Scenarios Relayed by the IPCC
3.2.2 Biodiversity Destruction and Extinction of Living Species
3.2.3 Biogeochemical Cycles
3.2.4 Ocean Acidification
3.2.5 Introduction of Novel Entities
3.2.6 Freshwater Use, Stratospheric Ozone Depletion, Atmospheric Aerosol Loading, and Land-System Change
3.3 The Notion of the ‘Great Acceleration’
Bibliographical References
Chapter 4: The Political Ambiguities Surrounding the Anthropocene
4.1 Political Ignorance of the Anthropocene Narrative
4.1.1 An Undifferentiated Anthropos
4.1.2 The Naturalist Discourse
4.1.3 The Discourse on a Blinkered Human Species Finally Enlightened by Science
4.2 The Anthropocene as a Political and Engaged Concept
4.2.1 The Anthropocene as a Political Concept
4.2.2 The Political Question of the Date of Entry into the Anthropocene
4.2.3 The Political Irrelevance of the Anthropocene
4.2.4 The Anthropocene: An Engaged Concept
Bibliographical References
Chapter 5: Conceptions of Political Action in the Anthropocene: Between Prometheism and Post-Prometheism
5.1 Political Ecologies
5.2 Promethean and Techno-Scientific Politics
5.2.1 A ‘Good Anthropocene’
5.2.2 Planetary Stewardship Through Geoengineering
5.3 Post-Promethean Policies and Changing Lifestyles
5.3.1 The Long Term and Sustainability
5.3.2 Political Responsibility for Preparing for the Future
5.3.3 Towards Post-Capitalist Social Democracy?
5.3.4 Earth System Governance and Long-Term Governance
5.3.4.1 Towards a Progressive Integration of the Anthropocene Into the Citizen Debate
Bibliographical References
Chapter 6: Integration of the Anthropocene into the Citizen Debate
6.1 A Productivist and Growth-Oriented Alternative to Neoliberalism: The Manifesto of the Appalled Economists (2010) and the New Manifesto of the Appalled Economists (2015)
6.1.1 The Lack of Ecological Thinking in the 2010 Manifesto
6.1.2 The Ambivalent Ecological Thinking of the 2015 Manifesto
6.2 Speed in Politics from the Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (2013)
6.2.1 Srnicek and Williams’ Accelerationist Thesis
6.2.2 Post-Capitalism as a Collective Glimmer of Hope
6.2.3 A Resolutely Promethean Politics
6.2.4 Categorical (Possibly Violent) and Insufficiently Radical Thinking
6.3 The Ecological Prometheism of the Ecomodernist Manifesto (2015)
6.3.1 Growth-Oriented Ecology
6.3.2 Faith in Technology as the Dominant Rationality
6.4 The Uncontrollable Vitality of the Manifest für das Anthropozän (2015)
6.5 Peer-to-Peer Digital Technology as a Medium for Developing a New Relational Style (The Commons Manifesto, 2018)
6.5.1 An Understanding of Technology as a Relational Style
6.5.2 The Commons: A Type of Production That Differs from Capitalism
6.5.3 Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP)
6.5.4 Towards a New Type of Civilisation?
6.6 The Recognition of Animals as Political Subjects: The Animalist Manifesto (2017)
6.6.1 Politicising the Animal Cause
6.6.2 Animals are Political Subjects
6.7 The Manifesto for Climate Justice’s Call for Political and Legal Action (2019)
6.7.1 A Call to Resist
6.7.2 A Fight Against Productivism and Financial hybris
6.7.3 A Challenge to Teachers
6.8 The Thunderous Entry of the Anthropocene Into Politics with Integral Ecology – The Manifesto (2019)
6.8.1 Policy Overhaul
6.8.2 The Triumph of Alternative Lifestyles
6.9 Conviviality as the Political Foundation of the Convivialist Manifesto (2013)
6.9.1 The Federation of Alternative Thoughts
6.9.2 Togetherness and the Sharing of Freedoms
6.9.3 Dealing with hybris – The Mother of All Threats
6.9.4 Four Principles at the Root of Politics for the Contemporary Period
6.9.4.1 What Kind of Anthropological Shift Is Needed?
Bibliographical References
Part II: A Consolidation of Policy Requiring an Anthropological Shift
Chapter 7: The Idea of an Anthropological Shift
7.1 The Integration of the Anthropocene Into the Citizen Debate and the Question of an Anthropological Shift
7.1.1 Manifestos That Do Not Target Anthropological Change: The Manifesto of the Appalled Economists, the New Manifesto of the Appalled Economists and the Ecomodernist Manifesto
7.1.2 The Promethean Acceleration of the Accelerationist Manifesto
7.1.3 Anthropological and Political Implications of the Primacy of Life in the Anthropocene Manifesto
7.1.4 Digital Technology as a Means of Non-transhumanist Anthropological Evolution as Proposed by the Commons Manifesto
7.1.5 A Profound Transformation Through Shared Feeling, as Proposed in the Animalist Manifesto
7.1.6 The Invention of a ‘Different We’ in the Manifesto for Climate Justice
7.1.7 Ecofeminism as a Pillar for the Anthropological Shift Proposed in the Integral Ecology Manifesto
7.1.8 From the Satisfaction of Needs to the Pursuit of Desires (Convivialist Manifesto)
7.2 Comparative Reading of the Anthropological Conceptions of These Nine Manifestos
7.2.1 The Advent of Post-Promethean Social Spaces
7.2.2 Relationships at the Heart of Politics (and of a Politics of Life)
7.2.3 The Radicality of an Anthropology of Immersion in Nature
7.2.4 Convivialist Radicality
7.3 An Earthling Anthropology
7.3.1 A Move Towards Surviving an Anthropological Crisis
Bibliographical References
Chapter 8: Weathering the Storm of the Contemporary Anthropological krisis
8.1 Thinking About a Humanity in Motion with Maurice Bellet
8.1.1 Some Biographical Details
8.1.2 General Presentation of Maurice Bellet’s Work
8.1.3 Maurice Bellet’s Manifesto for an Anthropological Shift: Incipit, ou, le Commencement (1992)
8.1.4 Experiencing Humanity as an Adventure
8.1.5 Thinking About Politics from the Perspective of a ‘Between-Us’
8.2 Krisis and Criticism
8.2.1 Krisis
8.2.2 Ethics of Resistance and Critique of Technology
8.3 Anthropological Plasticity
8.3.1 The Idea of Humanity in Maurice Bellet’s Thinking
8.3.2 From a Real Man to a Possible Man
8.4 Anthropological Change
8.4.1 Dealing with the Threat
8.4.2 From Humanity Under Threat to the Rebirth of Humanity
8.4.3 Towards an Alteration of the Desire of homo oeconomicus
8.5 Action
8.5.1 Thinking of Action from the Perspective of Revolution
8.5.2 The Existential Foundations of Action
8.5.2.1 A Post-Promethean ‘Between-Us’ to Get Us Through the Anthropological krisis
Bibliographical References
Chapter 9: From the (Augmented) Individual to a Post-Promethean ‘Between-Us’
9.1 Transhumanism in Questions
9.1.1 Some Technological Developments in the Contemporary Period
9.1.2 Transhumanism as the Absence of Politics
9.2 The Fulfilment of the Promethean Goal of Modernity
9.2.1 The Promethean Individual
9.2.2 Towards the Disappearance of the World
9.2.3 An Absence of the Other
9.3 The Cyborg manifesto (1985) by Donna Haraway as a Counterpoint
9.3.1 Technosciences as Political Provocation and Expansion of the Field of Thought
9.3.2 The Cyborg Myth and the Question of Limits
9.3.3 A Political Anthropology Beyond Dualisms and Domination
9.4 To Augment or to Educate?
9.5 Educating for Post-Promethean Interleaving
9.5.1 From Prometheus to Soteria, Aidos or Epimetheus
Bibliographical References
Chapter 10: From the Human Condition to the Human Adventure
10.1 The Three Dimensions of the Human Adventure: hybris, the World and Coexistence
10.1.1 Human Nature, Human Condition or Human Adventure?
10.1.2 Anthropocenic Criticism of Arendtian Anthropology
10.1.3 The Biosphere as an Anthrome, an Agora, and A Milieu
10.1.4 Homo Oeconomicus, Homo Collectivus and Homo Religatus
10.2 Hybris: The Profit-Driven Logic of homo oeconomicus
10.3 World: The Responsibility-Driven Logic of homo collectivus
10.4 Coexistence: The Logic of Hospitality of homo religatus
10.4.1 The Primacy of Coexistence
10.4.2 Homo Religatus, Socius and Hospitality
10.5 Homo Collectivus, Oeconomicus, and Religatus
10.5.1 Homo Collectivus and Homo Religatus
10.5.2 Homo Oeconomicus and Homo Collectivus
10.5.3 Homo Oeconomicus and Homo Religatus
10.5.3.1 Educating for the ‘Birth of New Men’ (Arendt, 1983, p. 278)
Bibliographical References
Part III: Conviviality as a Paradigm of Political Education
Chapter 11: Learning Convivial Citizenship in the Anthropocene
11.1 Education in the Anthropocene: Between Changing Nothing and Changing Everything
11.1.1 An Interleaving of Certainties and Uncertainties
11.1.2 Moving Beyond the Paradigm of Education for Sustainable Development
11.2 Curnier’s Work on the Role of the School in the Ecological Transition
11.2.1 Curnier’s Prescribed Curriculum
11.2.2 A Critique of the Neoliberal Dimension
11.2.3 Citizenship Learning as a Goal of Education in the Anthropocene
11.2.4 Extending the Paradigmatic Breaks Outlined
11.3 Citizenship and the Anthropocene
11.3.1 What Kind of Citizen Do We Want?
11.3.1.1 The ‘Facing’ Adult as a Figure of the Anthropocene Postmodern Adult
11.3.1.2 The Figure of the Citizen in Corine Pelluchon’s Ethics of Virtues
11.3.1.3 The Figure of the Existential Citizen Described by Christian Arnsperger
11.3.2 What Type of Citizenship Is Necessary in the Anthropocene?
11.3.2.1 Education and Politics in the Notions of Bildung and Citizenship
Educating for Citizenship?
Bildung: A Political Conception of Education
Citizenship: An Education in Politics
11.3.2.2 World Citizenship?
11.3.2.3 Earthly or Cosmic Citizenship?
11.3.2.4 Emancipating or Responsible Citizenship?
Emancipating Citizenship?
The Commitment that Compels Responsibility
Educational Emancipation at the Crossroads Between Three Paradoxes
Educational Emancipation Based on the Consideration of Constraints
11.4 Learning Convivial Citizenship Together
11.4.1 Thinking of a Convivial Citizenship Against the Background of Existential Citizenship
11.4.2 A Convivial Citizenship Rooted in the Vitality of the Biosphere and Combatting Hybris
11.4.3 Learning Together
Bibliographical References
Chapter 12: Resilient Education: Dealing with Nascent Hybris
12.1 Hybris and the World
12.2 The Purpose of Convivialist Education: Learning About the World or Learning to Live?
12.2.1 Interiority and Exteriority in Education
12.2.2 Experiencing Existence to Open Up the World
12.2.3 Taking on Responsibility for the World
12.3 Learning to Live (and to Bring Life) by Existing with Limits
12.3.1 Living Within the Limits of the Biosphere
12.3.2 Recognising the Earth as Our Master
12.3.3 Understanding Civilisations as the Result of Climate Stability
12.4 From Acceleration to Resonating with the World
12.4.1 Confronting the ‘Great Acceleration’
12.4.2 What Do We Learn in the Contemporary Period of Acceleration?
12.4.2.1 The Current Acceleration Provides Many Opportunities to Learn
12.4.2.2 Characteristics of Acceleration-Enhanced Learning
12.4.3 Learning to Resonate with the World
12.4.3.1 Presentation of the Concept of Resonance
12.4.3.2 A Political Sociology of the ‘Good Life’
The ‘Good Life’
Rosa’s Relationship to Sociology
12.4.3.3 Resonance as a Convivialist Anthropological Shift – Reconfiguring the Concept of Learning
Bibliographical References
Chapter 13: A Critical Education: We Are Not Separate from the Earth – We are the Earth
13.1 Resistance, Critique and Utopia: Three Functions of Education in the Anthropocene
13.2 Hartmut Rosa, Andreas Weber and David Abram
13.2.1 Anthropological Convergences
13.2.2 The Playing Down of the Anthropocene in Rosa’s Work
13.2.3 Weber’s Overcoming of the Limits of Rosa’s Work
13.3 A Political Anthropology of Education Rooted in the Biosphere
13.3.1 Enlivenment as a Practice of the Commons
13.3.2 Sharing as a Way of Being Oneself
13.3.3 The Inclusion of Life in the Carbon Cycle
13.3.4 The Importance of Feeling in the Anthropocene
13.3.5 A Proposal to Go Beyond the Enlightenment
13.3.5.1 From Critique to Utopia
Bibliographical References
Chapter 14: Utopian Education: Earth and the World Speak
14.1 Making Earth and the World Sing in the Anthropocene
14.2 The Earth Speaks for Itself: The Different Candidate Dates for the Entry Into the Anthropocene
14.2.1 The Stone Age
14.2.2 Agricultural Development
14.2.3 The Meeting of the Old and the New World
14.2.4 The Industrial Revolution
14.2.5 The Great Acceleration
14.2.6 Nuclear Detonations
14.2.7 Somewhere in the Future
14.2.8 The Systemic Approach: The anthropocene Rather Than the Anthropocene
14.3 The Earth Speaks to Us
14.3.1 Cutting Ourselves off from the Earth Gradually Leads Us Into Madness
14.3.2 Writing, and Then the Complexity of Our Technical Artefacts, Have Distanced Us from the Biospheric Web
14.4 Learning to Listen (to the Earth, to the World and to Each Other)
14.4.1 Overcoming the Reification of Things and Nature Through Their Objectification
14.4.2 Listening to the Earth’s Living and Speaking Biodiversity
14.4.3 Learning to Listen to the Other
Bibliographical References
Chapter 15: Educating to Change the World in the Anthropocene
15.1 Educating in the Anthropocene So That We Can Disagree Without Killing Each Other
15.2 Educating in the Anthropocene for a Love of the World and the Earth
15.3 Educating in the Anthropocene to Bring About a Post-Promethean Society
Bibliographical References
Bibliographical References
A. Anthropocene
I. Concept of the Anthropocene
II. Other Geological Works
III. Limits of the Biosphere
IV. Politics
B. Authors Regularly Cited or Studied
I. Hannah Arendt
II. Christian Arnsperger
III. Maurice Bellet
IV. Dominique Bourg
V. Jean-Pierre Boutinet
VI. Jean-Philippe Pierron
VII. Hartmut Rosa
VIII. Bruno Villalba
IX. Political Scientists from the Rennes School
X. The Convivialists
XI. The Accelérationists
XII. Andreas Weber
XIII. David Abram
XIV. The Early Critical Theoreticians
C. Citizenship
I. Citizenship
II. Crisis in Politics
III. Other Works of Political Theory
IV. Hospitality
V. Other Works on the Future
VI. Politics and Education
VII. Other Manifestos
D. Education and Pedagogy
I. Educational Reflections
II. Pedagogical Practice
E. Other Elements for Political Anthropology
I. Other Philosophical Works
II. Other Economic Works
III. Sociology of the Contemporary Individual
IV. Anthropological Analyses
V. Other Epistemological Works
References
Index
