“Progress or Return? Capitalism, Entropy and Eternal Recurrence” - Miguel Vatter

With the Anthropocene, our historical consciousness has entered a “planetary” stage. By this I mean that our conception of history and politics is changing in order to take into account the human species as an “impersonal and unconscious geophysical force.” In this lecture I shall discuss how the Gaia hypothesis places in crisis any philosophy of history based on progress. I shall advance the claim that a conception of cosmic time based on the principle of entropy requires us to take up the idea and ideal of eternal recurrence, which must be understood simultaneously as a mathematical-scientific principle and a political-theological one. Lastly, I shall connect this cosmo-political discussion of entropy to capitalism and the question of revolution following the thought of Benjamin and Bataille.

Miguel Vatter is professor of politics at Deakin University, Australia, and 2024-2025 Leverhulme visiting professor at Lancaster University. His areas of research are the history of political thought, biopolitics, and political theology. His most recent book is "Living Law. Jewish Political Theology from Hermann Cohen to Hannah Arendt" (Oxford 2021); and his most recent edited volume, with Vanessa Lemm, is "The Viral Politics of COVID-19: Nature, Home and Planetary Health" (Palgrave 2022).

The event is a cooperation between the Center for Critical Studies (CCS) and the research initiative on the Disruptive Condition.

Language: English
Contact: nicolas.schneider@leuphana.de