Gaia and the Anthropocene; or, The Return of Teleology

In: Telos, Issue 172

Abstract

The Gaia hypothesis was formulated for the first time in 1979 by the British biologist James Lovelock. According to this conception, the Earth should be seen as a macro-organism whose purpose is to keep constant the basic ecological conditions that are necessary for the presence of life on the planet's surface. However, often with the support of Lovelock himself, this scientific hypothesis has gone beyond its limits, transforming itself into a sort of anti-humanistic pseudo-religion. The Earth becomes a kind of divinity (Gaia) with a purposive will. This process of 'personification' is quite paradoxical: Nature acquires features that are denied, at the same time, to any individual man. In fact, the human being, in this conceptual framework is only a part of the Great Whole, of Mother Nature. Here, Bondi argues the Gaia cult of the Earth could still block the planetarian projects of global governance through Earth System Science's various schemes for geoengineering. He also challenges the embedded teleological reasoning at the core of Lovelock's models of Gaia along with the cult of nature that the Anthropocene concept simultaneously rebukes and embraces. Adapted from the source document.