Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising philosophy (...) of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer proposed to introduce a new geological era, the Anthropocene, they could not have foreseen the remarkable career of the new term. Within a few years, the geological community began to investigate the scientific evidence for the concept and established the Anthropocene Working Group. While the Working Group has started to examine possible markers and periodizations of the new epoch, scholars from numerous other disciplines have taken up the (...) Anthropocene as a cultural concept. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the Anthropocene’s broader societal ramifications. The article sheds light on the controversial debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its inextricably linked dual careers, first as a geological term and second as a cultural term. Third, it argues that the debate about the “Age of Humans” is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now. Specifically, it examines both the heuristic and analytical power of the concept. It discusses new histories, new ideas to understand historical change, and new temporalities shaped by scholars who have taken up the challenge of the Anthropocene as a cultural concept that has the ability to question established stories and narratives. Fourth, it ends by stressing the potential of the Anthropocene concept to blur established epistemological boundaries and to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborations between the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer proposed to introduce a new geological era, the Anthropocene, they could not have foreseen the remarkable career of the new term. Within a few years, the geological community began to investigate the scientific evidence for the concept and established the Anthropocene Working Group. While the Working Group has started to examine possible markers and periodizations of the new epoch, scholars from numerous other disciplines have taken up the (...) Anthropocene as a cultural concept. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the Anthropocene’s broader societal ramifications. The article sheds light on the controversial debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its inextricably linked dual careers, first as a geological term and second as a cultural term. Third, it argues that the debate about the “Age of Humans” is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now. Specifically, it examines both the heuristic and analytical power of the concept. It discusses new histories, new ideas to understand historical change, and new temporalities shaped by scholars who have taken up the challenge of the Anthropocene as a cultural concept that has the ability to question established stories and narratives. Fourth, it ends by stressing the potential of the Anthropocene concept to blur established epistemological boundaries and to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborations between the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

The politics of the Anthropocene has been widely debated within recent sociological theory. This article seeks to argue that Marxism, critical theory and especially the work of Herbert Marcuse have a great deal to contribute to these debates. Here, I seek to link together the recent revival of interest in the idea of the commons by the alter-globalisation movement and Marxist social theory in an attempt to challenge some of the dominant assumptions in respect of the nature/culture division and the (...) neoliberal dominance of mainstream politics. The more critical politics of the commons would suggest both a radical politics fit for the twenty-first century and a way of understanding the environmental crisis located within critical understandings of the histories of capitalism and social movements. This is suggestive of a civilisation-based politics focused on questions of emancipation informed by political economy, a critique of the dominant consumer society and culture rather than questions of deconstruction. In the final section, I seek to explore how Marcuse’s concerns remain linked to contemporary global ethical movements for change. (shrink)

Among the contemporary philosophers using the concept of the Anthropocene, Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers are prominent examples. The way they use this concept, however, diverts from the most common understanding of the Anthropocene. In fact, their use of this notion is a continuation of their earlier work around the concept of a ‘parliament of things.’ Although mainly seen as a sociology or philosophy of science, their work can be read as philosophy of technology as well. Similar to Latour’s claim (...) that science is Janus-headed, technology has two faces. Faced with the Anthropocene, we need to shift from technologies of control to technologies of negotiations, i.e., a parliament of things. What, however, does a ‘parliament of things’ mean? This paper wants to clarify what is conceptually at stake by framing Latour’s work within the philosophy of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers. Their philosophy implies a ‘postlinguistic turn,’ where one can ‘let things speak in their own name,’ without claiming knowledge of the thing in itself. The distinction between object and subject is abolished to go back to the world of ‘quasi-objects’ (Serres). Based on the philosophy of science of Latour and Stengers the possibility for a politics of quasi-objects or a ‘cosmopolitics’ (Stengers) is opened. It is in this framework that their use of the notion of the Anthropocene must be understood and a different view of technology can be conceptualized. (shrink)

How do nuclear technologies become commonplace? How have the borders between the exceptional and the banal been drawn and redrawn over the last 70 years in order to make nuclear energy part of everyday life? This special issue analyzes the role of fun and display, broadly construed, in shaping the cultural representation and the material circulation (or non-circulation) of nuclear technologies. Four case studies, covering the United States, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, and Ukraine from the 1950s to the 2000s, explore (...) how specific forms of public display and playful practices of cultural production were used as means to banalize (or de-banalize) nuclear energy. This introduction addresses the main theoretical and historiographical signposts of the special issue and outlines the different ways in which the articles explore them. (shrink)

The fact that humans are responsible for climate change is certain. But the meaning of the fact of human responsibility is not disclosed by stating the fact: there is a distinction between the two principles, de facto and de jure, the right to state a fact and the right to assert the meaning of the fact. This distinction must be preserved in order that humans may interpret the nature of our responsibility, as a form of justice. In fact, the nature (...) of human responsibility can never be exhaustively determined. To recognise the fact of human responsibility for climate change may only lead us to acknowledge that climate change coincides with the plundering and exploitation of the earth as a natural resource, together with the industrial pollution which fouls our atmosphere. It is something else again to know precisely what must be done, how to think and write and interpret the science, or even what can be achieved before it is too late to prevent the worst effects of global warming. In this essay I analyse the central claims of proponents of the idea of the Anthropocene, arguing that they are arrogant and perhaps even naïve: in particular, the suggestion that humanity and nature have now fused to become a geological force is shown to be theological in its orientation. The essay also exposes Anthropocenology as a form of pedagogy, meaning that rather than opposing the neoliberalism that it attacks, Anthropocenology joins itself to the biopolitical institutions of education, seizing power in order to govern a totalized human population all the more effectively. (shrink)

The Anthropocene is built on complex technological systems that span the globe. Historians of science have done much to document the emergence of this “technosphere.” Yet more interdisciplinary and regionally diverse approaches are needed to understand the complexity and unpredictability of the technosphere in our Anthropocene times. Rather than assuming a single planetary phenomenon, this essay emphasizes the widely varied lived experiences of the Anthropocene. Taking industrialized mining and oil drilling as examples of the technosphere, it examines three African localities (...) of resource extraction—the Congolese Copperbelt, the South African Witwatersrand, and the Niger Delta in Nigeria—to ask why the environmental transformations of large-scale industry have caused violent protest in one locality but apparent acquiescence in others. The concept of the Anthropocene urges historians of science to connect questions about scientific knowledge and technology to issues of environmental change, economic organization, political power, social differentiation, and cultural imagination. This broad approach, the essay suggests, can prove extremely fruitful in explaining historical variations and contemporary responses to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Humans built cities, but cities are where we become civil, civilized, and civically minded; we are thus products of cities. Cities are also ubiquitous in the human experience. Yet, the last two hundred years witnessed an unprecedented mega-urbanization of humanity. In 2007, or so, it was announced that more humans now lived in cities than in the countryside. This article aims to analyze the new pattern of mega-urbanization in the twenty-first century, a century that brings extreme challenges: demographic growth (9 (...) billion humans), global warming with its concomitant chaotic and severe weather, massive population displacements, precarious water resources, and greater global economic integration with growing volatility. The largest megalopolises of the twenty-first century will be in the “global South” in the “developing world.” Most of this urbanization will be in the form of irregular urbanization, that is, ghettos, shantytowns, favelas, slums. (shrink)

First, the article illustrates the concept of ‘cultural heritage’ as traditionally meant, namely relying on a historically consolidated narrative. Next, it undertakes a broader conceptual analysis and deals with three distinct issues: (i) the fact that the conceptualizations and uses of heritage largely depend on long lasting dichotomies (e.g., tangible/intangible, natural/cultural); (ii) the way in which cultural backgrounds shape the dynamics of valuing and approaching heritage; (iii) the temporal framing of heritage, which today, in the Anthropocene, also points towards how (...) to deal with a future of uncertainty. Lastly, it introduces the notion of epistemic heritage, (i.e., the existence of multiple cultural ways of knowing), investigating its implications for both how cultural heritage is conceived and the future approached. (shrink)

The article argues that environmental planetary discourses have coalesced into the Anthropocene crisis narrative and reformulated the state of nature apparatus of Western political theory. The Anthropocene, as an ecological state of nature of late capitalism, casts light on the logics of geopower, which assembles species thinking, a fascination with nonlife and sovereignty, and the imaginary of extinction and mutation. Geopower shifts governmental technologies from human populations and their ‘milieu’ to nonhuman species, energy flows and ecosystems, from political economy and (...) biopower to Earth science and systems ecology. This configuration of power suggests a shift in the neoliberal agenda and imposes the Earth as a political personage, generating threatening political myths and figures of chaos and sovereignty, such as Gaia, Chthulu and Climate Leviathans. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the ways in which Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s reflections on the dialectic of the domination of nature shed new light on recent discussions about the concept of the Anthropocene. A central motif is the fear of nature, which, according to Adorno, prevailed at the beginning of its mastery by humans in prehistoric times. Harnessing external nature enabled the stabilisation of internal nature and social relations. This link between nature’s relative stability and social relations was characteristic of the Holocene. (...) In the Anthropocene, capitalist domination destabilises nature, which in turn destabilises social life. The natural terror of nature returns in the face of the socially produced climate catastrophe, adding a new aspect to Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s diagnosis of the domination of nature. The article concludes by suggesting a changed relationship to nature, which no longer would understand it as a mere object, but as a “subject in its own right”. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Whatever Happened to Richard Rorty?” endorses Nicholas Gaskill's analysis of Rorty's limited legacy in the field of science and technology studies. It shows how, rather than engaging with scientific practice in a substantial way, Rorty relied heavily on the ideas of Thomas Kuhn. The article surveys the development of science studies since Kuhn's day, sketching an intellectual genealogy for Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers, whose work addresses—much more directly than Rorty's—current concerns with the (...) climate crisis and environmental degradation. (shrink)

This essay argues for a transversal posthumanities-based pedagogy, rooted in an attentive ethico-onto-epistemology, by reading the schizoanalytical praxes of Deleuzoguattarian theory alongside the work of various feminist new materialist scholars.

RESUMEN El siglo XXI ha visto el auge de la "filosofia ambiental", preocupada por problematizar la crisis ecológica global. En esta bibliografia quedan relegados los aportes de Félix Guattari, uno de los primeros en desarrollar una filosofia ambiental en su obra Las tres ecologías. Este artículo propone analizar el centro problemático de esta obra pionera. Asi, se insiste en la importancia de volver al texto original; de revisar sus temas principales en cada dominio ecosófico ; y de sostener su vigencia (...) incluso a la luz de la actual filosofia ambiental. Además, en este análisis se consideran los aciertos y los desaciertos de sus apuestas y pronósticos: es notable que su incumplida esperanza práctica contrasta con su agudo diagnóstico teórico. Este texto arguye que esta obra no solo resiste bien el paso del tiempo, sino que además cumple con el propósito de clarificar la actual catástrofe planetaria. ABSTRACT The 21st century has seen the rise of "environmental philosophy", concerned with the problematization of the global ecological crisis. In this bibliography, the contributions of Felix Guattari remain relegated -even when he should be acknowledged as one of the first to develop an environmental philosophy in his work The Three Ecologies-. This article proposes an analysis of the problematic center of this pioneering work. Thus, it insists on the importance of returning to the original text; of revising its main topics in each ecosophical domain ; and of upholding its relevance even in the light of current environmental philosophy. Furthermore, in this analysis, the successes and flaws of its wagers and forecasts are considered: it is of note that its unfulfilled practical hope contrasts with its sharp theoretical diagnosis. The present text argues that this work not only passes the test of time, but also fulfills the purpose of clarifying the current planetary catastrophe. (shrink)

For at least two centuries most social thought has taken the earth to be the stable platform upon which dynamic social processes play out. Both climate change and the Anthropocene thesis – with their enfolding of dramatic geologic change into the space-time of social life – are now provoking social thinkers into closer engagement with earth science. After revisiting the decisive influence of the late 18th-century notion of geological formations on the idea of social formations, this introductory article turns to (...) more recent and more explicit attempts to open up the categories of social thought to a deeper understanding of earth processes. This includes attempts to consider how social and political agency is both constrained and made possible by the forces of the earth itself. It also involves efforts to think beyond existing dependencies of social worlds upon particular geological strata and to imagine alternative ‘geosocial’ futures. (shrink)

Many contemporary thinkers of the Anthropocene, who attempt to articulate a non-modern and relational ontology, all too readily dismiss critical theory inherited from the Frankfurt School for being anthropocentric, failing to acknowledge certain basic similarities. Instead, this article argues that the scaffolding of Anthropocene thinking—the recognition of the origins of the contemporary condition of ‘loss of world’ and the hope of ‘living on in the ruins’—share much with earlier critical theorists’ recognition that the Holocaust necessitated a fundamental break with the (...) past. In reading these two sets of literatures together, we suggest we can get a better grasp of the stakes involved in the contemporary crisis of critique, and in the speculative framings enabling alternative futures to come into being. (shrink)

: How is it possible to account for the double dimension of the “anthropos” of the Anthropocene? At once both a responsible, historical subject, and a neutral, non-conscious and non-reflexive force? According to Chakrabarty, the “anthropos” has to be considered a geological force; according to Smail, it has to be considered an addicted brain. A subjectivity without being for the former, an emotional and dependent biological and symbolic entity for the latter. As an in between solution, I propose a rereading (...) of the concept of “mentality” proposed by Braudel and his followers from the Annales School. The mental would be intermediarily located between the inorganic and the neural, thus helping to fill the gap between two opposed concepts of history, that are both implied in the current redefinition of ecology. (shrink)