Abstract
This chapter proposes guidelines to start the construction of an alternative theoretical framework based on the notion of post-speciesism as a mark of the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century in a double reading, biological and philosophical. The scientific and intellectual landscape has been defined by new concerns: biocide, ecocide, geocide, defaunation and the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth which have emerged within the Anthropocene framework since 1970. These concepts refer to different types of changes, which are responded to by trying to re-establish a previous balance, instead of responding with another change, given that it is impossible to return to a previous point in the ecosystem. However, it is more interesting to escape from this epistemological desert towards new constructions of meaning. The concept of species, and consequently the concept of speciesism requires an alternative approach. Following the recent advances in the theory of (co) evolution, all biological entities (to a greater or lesser degree) are imbricated in the cultural network. Thus, the distinction between species is not the most desirable one. A scheme that distinguishes by positions in a field in which we differentiate types of behaviour, structures and influences will allow us to think in a different way. All this, in a symbolic mediation produced so far by (at least) one of the entities previously included among the species. This becomes clear under a biological perspective in which the domestic/wild distinction explodes as well as the culture/nature dichotomy. This theoretical background makes it possible to approach the COVID-19 pandemic. By leaving behind the notion of human exceptionality, the belief that zoonoses are secondary phenomena also disappears. In the end, the assumption that if we are human, we are not (so) animals is the epicentre of the Anthropocene’s catastrophe of our time.
No matter what anybody tells you,
words and ideas can change the world.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
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Ferrari, H.R., Anzoátegui, M. (2023). Guidelines for a Post-speciesist Epistemology in the Age of Anthropocene. In: Weir, L. (eds) Philosophy as Practice in the Ecological Emergency. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94391-2_10
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