Vernadsky’s philosophical legacy: A perspective from the Anthropocene

Abstract

Vernadsky is rightly associated with the seminal contemporary concept of the ‘Biosphere’, which acknowledges that the world we belong to is a functionally integrated, global phenomenon. Beyond this fundamental idea (that ecology should be thought of at the planetary scale, presaging the concept of Earth System Science), Vernadsky also anticipated the idea of the so-called Anthropocene, i.e. the recent geological era dominated by the global environmental impact of human expansion and activities. Yet, this two-fold legacy of Vernadsky seems still underestimated when it comes to its philosophical implications. In this paper, I explore more particularly three philosophical implications of the planetary and cosmic view that Vernadsky had of the role of ecological/biological organization (including that of humankind) in the great chemical cycles of the Earth, with regard to epistemology, ethics and (in a more speculative way) metaphysics.