The humanities in the times of the Anthropocene: At the threshold between Humanism and Posthumanism

Abstract

With regard to the so-called "Anthropocene" era, in which human beings have become Earths' main telluric force, the humanities are clearly under siege. They must review in depth their conception of human being, usually defined as essentially different from Nature. Accordingly, two distinct ways of reaction are open: one retains the principles of the humanistic tradition, while the other one seeks to drift apart from that very same tradition, and to open up a new paradigm of thinking that might be called posthumanist. This paper broadly puts in conftrast both approaches by asking which of them comes to grip with this event, and so lets us understand what does it mean to be human in this new era.