The Return of Nature in the Anthropocene

The concept of Anthropocene seems to represent a new opportunity for earth scientists and social (de)constructivists to definitely abolish the distinction between nature and society, to affirm human power on the planet and to allege the “end of nature”. Indeed, the fact that humanity is about to be acknowledged as a new geological force represents a last chance for the Promethean triumphalism to prosper upon the wreckage of its own ecological collapse. This position can be summarized in McKibben terms: ‘we now live in a world of our own making’. I will argue against this view that it brings about two major contradictions, one in the epistemological field, the other in the moral and philosophical one. first of all, to acknowledge that nature and society are more and more intertwined around us - and inside us - is not enough, as Hornborg explains (2014), to abandon the analytic distinction between aspects deriving from human societies and those deriving from pre-human principles and regularities. In other words, natural objects have still agency and human societies themselves are materially anchored in biophysical conditions that transcend them. Second, from the moral and philosophical point of view, there is a contradiction between the claim that humans are new “planetary managers” or “earth engineers”, and our obvious inability to control our environmental impacts on the planet. Against the arrogance contained in the concept of Anthropocene, I will argue that the repeated failures of ecological modernisation and environmental managerialism should be an opportunity to re-think our place on earth and to accept the fragility and vulnerability of the human species in the face of complex and unpredictable natural phenomena. In short, what needs to be developed is not a new form of human hubris but our capacities for gratitude, humility, respect and restraint.