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What Is at Stake in the Formalization of a Chronostratigraphic Unit? A Case Study on the Anthropocene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2022

Hernán Bobadilla Open the ORCID record for Hernán Bobadilla [Opens in a new window]
Hernán Bobadilla*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
*
Email: hernanfelipe.bobadilla@polimi.it
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Abstract

The prospective formalization of the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic unit by the International Commission on Stratigraphy has been intensely debated. This paper explores and assesses the stakes of this process from a philosophical perspective. I distinguish two senses of formalization—the descriptive and the evaluative—and argue that: 1) there are descriptive and evaluative formalizations of the Anthropocene beyond the confines of the ICS; 2) incoherencies between Anthropocene proposals and the ICS’s current tenets are not a decisive reason for deferring descriptive formalization; and 3) the prospective evaluative formalization of the Anthropocene by the ICS would be impactful.

Type
Symposia Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 5 , December 2022 , pp. 1024 - 1033
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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