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Critical Theory and Climate Change: Collective Subjectivity, Evolution and Modernity

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Abstract

The social sciences, particularly sociology but also critical theory, have still insufficiently dealt with climate change, especially at the theoretical level. Marx and Marxism, the Frankfurt School and recent approaches in these traditions have articulated some ideas that may furnish a basis to tackle this shortcoming. This article initially presents and draws upon these ideas, develo** a theorization about collective subjectivity—as a specific conceptualization of social systems and ‘nature’—, with a multidimensional standpoint. It emphasizes a plural material dimension as well as diverse levels of subjectivity and intentionality. An analysis of the concepts of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene ensues, including a discussion of the role of the human species, as well as the developmental trends underlying climate change—, featuring capitalist accumulation and the objectification of the material world by the modern state. An analysis of contemporary modernity and the alternatives to tackle climate change concludes the discussion.

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Notes

  1. See the introduction to this Special Issue.

  2. For a full review of Marxist positions, see Castree, 2000.

  3. Aristotle (1930, 194, 195a/b) suggested that causation derives from ‘movement’ (or its blockage) and proposed four causalities: formal, efficient, final—teleological—and material (with meanings different from those they have today). In modernity, his final cause was taken as individual intentional action, while the material cause at most took a back seat. ‘Historical materialism’ rediscovered it. Dissolving the Aristotelian final, teleological cause in an obscure property of ‘actants’ is not however a good move. We need to grasp both the general and the particular characteristics of different types of being, specifying their different causalities.

  4. Critically, Cassegård (2021, chap. 8) thus argued that whereas ‘dualism’ must not be discarded, it should be turned into a methodological device beyond both an ontological split and any sort of ‘monism’.

  5. ‘Form’ is a concept that directly applies to ‘matter’, but also more generally to social relations. See Domingues, forthcoming.

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Funding

This study is supported by Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Annelise Maier Forschung Preis), CNPq PD-1B Grant and Faperj.

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  1. Institute for Social and Political Studies, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ), Rua da Matriz 82, Rio de Janeiro/RJ, CEP, 22260-100, Brazil

    José Maurício Domingues

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Domingues, J.M. Critical Theory and Climate Change: Collective Subjectivity, Evolution and Modernity. Int J Polit Cult Soc (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-023-09462-1

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