1/9/2024 0 Comments Civilization revolution vitaThis time, the philosophical challenge arises from the material basis itself insofar as this crisis calls into question the anthropocentric dualisms of western metaphysics and requires understanding the Earth as something other than a stable resource or passive background for human action. ![]() Now, yet again, we are on the verge of a new revolution. In the philosophy of science and technology the current environmental situation has been compared to the beginning of modern time when the Copernican Revolution led to the philosophical revolution of the Enlightenment, emphasizing reason as the guarantee of truth (Latour 2004 Serres 1995, 85). Just like the great narratives of progress and civilization before, now the Anthropocene challenges the adaptation of organisms to their environment. ![]() In other words, the realization of the new epoch does not depend so much on scientific formulas but on the human ability to understand the consequences of their own actions and to rethink their relationship to the earth. In recent years, this issue has become increasingly central to the humanities and social sciences where new materialist approaches have defined the Anthropocene not only as a matter of scientific facts but also a matter of common concern (e.g., Latour 2004). Implicitly, the quote entails the question of how to take care of that which belongs to no one but to which everyone belongs. On the contrary, Arendt describes the earth as “a free gift” from nowhere (Arendt 1998, 18) and yet this gift is not only for humans and cannot be owned by anyone. Her stance - “to no-one” - obviously does not refer to the history of imperialist expeditions according to which unowned territories were conceived to be free for the taking. Previously, the large upheavals of the Earth were visible only in sempiternal sediments, pollen samples and fossilized bones in amber now the effects of human-induced ecological catastrophe are already sensed and available to be evaluated.Ĭonsidering the anthropogenic environmental tragedies that threaten the conditions for all life forms on the planet, Arendt’s pondering of the question “to whom belongs the Earth” becomes a political problem par excellence. Despite the debate, scientists broadly share the view that human influence is already apparent in all spheres of the Earth, causing intertwining planetary problems such as the climate change, ocean acidification and 6th mass extinction event (e.g., Mauser 2006). The central debate concerns, for example, whether the era began already with either the Industrial Revolution or the great acceleration following the Second World War (International commission of stratigraphy, ICS). As we know today, the human effects on the Earth systems are so extensive that scientists believe the state of the Earth’s imbalance has led to a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene (e.g., Cruzen & Stormer 2000) Since the timing of vast geological periods is always a retrospective process, the scientific definition of the Anthropocene has become a subject of controversies in natural sciences. Though she is not often considered an environmental philosopher, she was right to suspect that, sooner or later, the expansionists efforts of humanity would inevitably meet their earthly limits (Arendt 2018). In The Human Condition (1957) Arendt approaches the industrial revolution of the 1800’s as a rebellion against the human condition and expresses her suspicion of humans’ ability to understand the far-reaching consequences of their actions (Arendt 1998, 19–21 236). Her often-overlooked ability to politicize the relations between active human life and material reality makes her an astonishingly contemporary thinker. Like all quotes this one undoubtedly evokes different associations for different readers, but to me its appeal lies in revealing the theory of materiality contained in Arendt’s political theory. However, the quote becomes understandable in the wider perspective of Arendt’s thinking where the earth as a biophysical condition of active human life emerges as one of her central concepts. Due to the obscure context, exact thoughts or discussions behind the note are difficult to conclude. ![]() The sentence occurs only in the marginalia of her lectures of the history of political theory given in 1955 at University of California at Berkeley. This quote is not among Hannah Arendt’s best-known as she never wrote it in any of her published texts.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |