Anthropocene and positionality (Ge-Stell): An epoch provoked by human or where human is provoked?

Abstract

The scientific community is debating on the possibility of a new contemporary era for the Planet Earth. No longer the holocene, but we now live the anthropocene. The debate proposes that the human has become a most influential cause on geological and biochemical processes of this planet. Amongst the several analyses that tries to identify the origins of this new era, there is that one which signals to a “Great Acceleration”, both populational and industrial, occurred during the 1950s. At this same decade, Martin Heidegger started to rehearse in his philosophical inquiries a new concept to express the essence of our contemporary age: positionality [Ge-Stell]. This article tries to evaluate the anthropocene diagnosis in correspondence to some heideggerian works. It is structured as follows: first, a brief introduction to the cientific debate about the anthropocene, side by side with a reading of the Antígona first chorus; after that, it follows Heidegger’s thought on human essence herein his interpretation of the same chorus; as a third step, we present an Heidegger’s interpretation of positionality as the essence of modern and contemporary age.