Paper short abstract:

Historical theorists have claimed that the Anthropocene has ushered in a fundamentally new historical condition. They base this claim on alleged ontological and epistemological characteristics of the Anthropocene. I critically examine this "novelty claim" and the philosophical reasons given for it.

Paper long abstract:

Historians and historical theorists such as Dipesh Chakrabarty and Zoltán Boldizsár Simon have in recent years argued that the Anthropocene has ushered in a radically novel historical condition. They base this claim on alleged ontological and epistemological characteristics of the Anthropocene such as its fundamental unprecedentedness and its attendant imperviousness to traditional historiographic understanding. Similarly, do they draw “formal” and disciplinary consequences from these characteristics, i.e. that narrative is unfit to represent the Anthropocene and that the matrix of scientific disciplines we are accustomed to is unable to deal with it.

This paper will assess all these claims from the standpoint of the philosophy of historiography and the philosophy of the historical sciences. The outcome of this examination is that the claims about the ontological and epistemological novelty are philosophically wanting and that therefore at least the formal consequence about narrative does not follow. I take this to be good news as it indicates that we already possess, at least partially, the intellectual resources to face the Anthropocene predicament.