Anthropocene Epistemology: Political, Ecological, and Economic Entanglements

This essay critically explores the connection between epistemology, political ecology, economy, and technological developments in the Anthropocene, understood as the epoch in which humankind has become a major force of geological transformation. It addresses the Anthropocene as a discourse and as a reality, bringing together epistemological reflexivity, ideology critique, and political economy-cum-ecology. The essay begins with an overview of the genesis and development of the Anthropocene concept—an often-repeated history which I reconsider from the viewpoint of historiographic developments in the history and philosophy of science. Since the Anthropocene hypothesis makes the history of knowledge, technological advancement, and socioeconomic structures fundamental factors in the Earth’s history, I point to the necessity of revising our reality-conceptions to account for the development of a world in which epistemic, economic, and political histories intersect with physics, geology, and biology. As a reappraisal of the historico-materialist approaches to science studies, I propose to expand the ‘externalist’ understanding of the socio-economic roots and social functions of science by including, in the geoanthropological paradigm to come, considerations of social metabolism and ecology. This proposal is also meant to serve as a basis for new forms of cross-disciplinary economic thinking that must comprise cultural and environmental perspectives. These considerations are the background of my criticism of the ideological aberrations in the debate on Anthropocene politics, which I term ‘dark ecologies’. I especially refer to Bruno Latour’s adherence to Malthusian and social-Darwinian ideas. In the last part, I discuss eco-socialist alternatives to the ecological impasse and advocate for the defence of the commons against their alienation as a premise of future prosperity.