Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Philosophical Essays on Renewable Technologies (Postphenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology)

We are facing an environmental crisis that some say is ushering a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, one that threatens not only a great deal of life on the planet but also our understanding of who we are and our relation to the natural world. In the face of this crisis it has become clear that we need a more sustainable culture. In fact the language of sustainability has become pervasive in our culture and has deeply ingrained itself in our understanding of what living a good life would entail. “Sustainability,” however, is a contested word, and it carries with it, often implicitly and unacknowledged, deep philosophical claims that are entangled with all kinds of assumptions and power relations, some of them very problematic. This book attempts to set this urgent goal of sustainability free from its more reductive and harmful interpretations and to thereby apply a more thoughtful environmental ethics to current and emerging technologies, particularly those involving reproduction and the harnessing of energy that dominate our elemental relations to sun and air, wind and water, earth and forest. The book is divided into 4 sections: (1) Sustainability: A Contested Term, (2) Sustainability and Renewable Technologies: Sun, Air, Wind, Water, (3) Sustainability and Design, and (4) Sustainability and Ethics. The first section sets the context for our studies and opens a space for thinking sustainability in a more thoughtful way than is often the case in contemporary discussions. The next two sections are the heart of our contribution to postphenomenology and technoscience, and the essays, here, turn to concrete examinations of particular technologies and questions of technological design in the light of our environmental crisis. The fourth section closes the book by drawing some more general implications for ethics from the intersection of the foregoing themes. Cover Sustainability in the Anthropocene Series Page Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Philosophical Essays on Renewable Technologies Copyright Page Contents Introduction The Historical Nature of the Problem: Sustainability and the Question of Modernity The Passion of the Personal: Disgust at the Fouling of the World/Dehumanization Ontogenesis: The Pro/creation of New Beings Notes Part I Defining Sustainability Chapter 1 Sustainability “Scarcity as the mother of invention”: The emergence of sustainability as an idea and as a word Sustainability as the possibility of new cognitive strategies Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Chapter 2 Is This the End? From Sustainability to Sustainable Development or Progress Progress Optimism versus the Intellectuals: the Pinker Case Truthfulness-to-Nature Notes Bibliography Part II Sustainability and Renewable Technologies: Sun, Air, Wind, Water Chapter 3 Is it Too Late to “Let the Sun Shine in”? Reference Chapter 4 Talking Weather from Ge-Rede to Ge-Stell1 The New “Modern Prometheus” Expectorations Notes Bibliography Chapter 5 Water and Oil The Resurgence of Nuclear Energy The Gestell of Capital Hydrontology Conclusion Notes Bibliography Chapter 6 The Ontogenesis of Wind Turbines and the Question of Sustainability Elemental Phase: Matter as Protomatter Individual Phase: From Form to In-formation Ensemble Phase: Ontogenesis of Wind Turbines Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Part III Sustainability and Design Chapter 7 We’re in this Together Notes Bibliography Chapter 8 An Alternative to Technological Instrumentalism Heidegger’s Critique of Modern Technology The “Danger” of Sustainable Energy Technology Fostering the Saving Power The Art of Sustainable Energy Technology Conclusion: A Sustainable Narrative Notes Bibliography Chapter 9 Digital Cultural Sustainability Digital Sustainability Cultural Sustainability From Cultural Sustainability to Digital Sustainability Postphenomenology and Sustainability Notes Bibliography Part IV Sustainability and Ethics Chapter 10 Sustainable Futures Sustainability: Reports, Manifestos, and Global Goals Past, Present, and Future The Multistability of Sustainable Futures Reflections Notes Bibliography Chapter 11 Beyond Naturalism Notes Bibliography Chapter 12 The Ethics of Sustainability, Instrumental Reason, and the Goodness of Nature Hope in the Age of the Anthropocene Notes Bibliography Index About the Editor About the Contributors