Hannah Arendt on Instrumentality and the Durability of the World: A Perspective on Geoengineering

Abstract

This thesis examines Hannah Arendt's critique of modernity through the lens of technological progress, emphasizing her concern for the durability of the earth amidst human interventions, like geoengineering. Arendt's distinction between the earth as a stable home for human plurality and the world as a humanly constructed realm highlights tensions exacerbated by contemporary technological advances and climate change. Her scepticism towards instrumental reason and technocratic political approaches, evident in her analysis of science's role in alienation and totalitarianism, warns against relying on geoengineering to address environmental challenges. In Arendt we can read an advocate for a pluralistic environmental approach to politics, rather than a purely technological one.