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Freedom and Heteronomy in the Anthropocene

  • Alexander M. Stoner

    Alexander M. Stoner, associate professor and head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, USA. His current research focuses on linkages between political-economic drivers of and societal responses to global climate change.

    and Harry F. Dahms

    Harry F. Dahms, Professor of Sociology, co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice and co-chair of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, as well as editor of Current Perspectives in Social Theory and director of the International Social Theory Consortium.

Published/Copyright: July 11, 2023
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Abstract

The concept of the Anthropocene reflects a particular meaning of the “human” as it exists in society, and a specific understanding of freedom, which only became possible at the close of the twentieth century. Whereas Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, Rousseau, and Adam Smith attempted to grasp the potential for humanity to be changed through society in a self-conscious process of attaining freedom, the “Age of Man” today appears entirely disconnected from human agency. Indeed, the Anthropocene is associated not with the flourishing of life but with the sixth mass extinction. Drawing insight from classical and contemporary critical theory, this paper seeks to explicate the emancipatory potential within the concept of the Anthropocene, and the ways in which this potential is blocked by material circumstances that masquerade as “freedom.”


1 We thank Dr. Nicholas Zeller (Kennesaw State University) and Katrina Stoner for comments on the manuscript.


About the authors

Alexander M. Stoner

Alexander M. Stoner, associate professor and head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, USA. His current research focuses on linkages between political-economic drivers of and societal responses to global climate change.

Harry F. Dahms

Harry F. Dahms, Professor of Sociology, co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice and co-chair of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, as well as editor of Current Perspectives in Social Theory and director of the International Social Theory Consortium.

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Published Online: 2023-07-11
Published in Print: 2023-06-27

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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