The Party of the Anthropocene

Post-humanism, Environmentalism and the Post-anthropocentric Paradigm Shift

Bibliographic Data

ID22343358
AuthorsFrancesca Ferrando (0000-0001-8873-8074, New York University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Issue4.2
Pages159-173
Publication date2016-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRelations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2283-3196 • E-ISSN: 2280-9643
PublisherLed Edizioni Universitarie (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.7358/rela-2016-002-ferr
OpenAlexW2549373054
LanguageEN
Citations received14

This article accounts for an environmental standpoint to be part of the post-human approach by accessing the post-human as a post-humanism, a post-anthropocentrism and a post-dualism. The main goal of this paper is to call for a post-anthropocentric turn by emphasizing the fact that the Anthropocene and the actual ecological collapse are only the symptoms; it is time to address the causes, which have been detected in the anthropocentric worldview based on an autonomous conception of the human as a self-defying agent. An urgent answer to this scenario lays in philosophy, and specifically, in a theoretical and pragmatical post-anthropocentric shift in the current perception of the human. This article reflects on the ideal, but also uneasy, practices of letting go of anthropocentric privileges. Such changes can only result by fully acknowledging the human species in relation to the environment. The Anthropocene shall thus be addressed, together with sustainable forms of producing (less), recycling and co-existing with other species, with a socio-political and cultural shift: a passage from humanism to post-humanism, here underlined in its specific meaning of post-anthropocentrism. The methodology of this article develops as an assemblage of theoretical thinking, creative writing and artistic image analysis

Aesthetics · Anthropocene · Anthropocentrism · Environmental ethics · Environmentalism · Epistemology · Humanism · Paradigm shift · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · History · Law · Philosophy