The Anthropocene as a Crisis of Educational Thought

Maksymilian Chutorański

doi:10.35765/hw.2026.2573.03

Maksymilian Chutorański University of Szczecin, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1740-0460

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/hw.2026.2573.03

Keywords: anthropocene, philosophy of education, non‑anthropocentric pedagogy, posthumanism, scholé

Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The article is to analyze the pedagogical responses to the Anthropocene challenges and to recognize the limits of dominant ways of incorporating ecological issues into education. The Author proposes a non-instrumental and non-anthropocentric orientation of educational instead of the only one normative concept

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article addresses the risks connected with pedagogical “responses” to the Anthropocene and notions enabling their critical analysis. It is a theoretical and philosophical study based on critical reading of educational discourse and interpretation of the concepts of Hannah Arendt, Gert Biesta, and the concept of scholé.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The argumentation identifies four ideal-typical pitfalls: instrumentalization of education, one-sided understandings of responsibility, denial of young people’s lived experience, and the assumption of a “happy ending.” Then, it develops an alternative understanding of education (natality, subjectification, and the scholé), and suggests its posthumanist revision.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The education subordinated to remedial goals tends to reproduce logics of control and efficiency. The proposed framework supports introducing “newcomers” to the world without imposing a single narrative, having considered the relational and more-than-human character of educational practices.

CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND APPLICABLE VALUE OF RESEARCH: Education in the Anthropocene is not tasked with saving the planet but with creating conditions for responsible, critical, and creative relations with the world. The article offers conceptual tools for non- anthropocentric pedagogy grounded in subjectivity, attentiveness, and relationality.

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