This paper addresses the paradox in environmental education between the idea of the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000), which claims human beings are the center of global environmental change, and the idea of post-humanism, which rejects anthropocentrism. We explore how Eastern humanism, and in particular Tu Weiming's (2010) concept of Anthropocosmism, may help to dissolve this paradox and how it can inspire environmental and sustainability education. While agreeing with arguments against seeing humans as the only or primary bearers of value or concern, we also wonder whether, in an era so strongly characterized by human-made environmental destruction, the way out of this crisis should be sought in post-humanist responses that risk diverting attention away from human accountability.
Modern Western humanism typically assumes that such ideas as human nature and humanity have an eternal and immutable metaphysical essence. Since the Enlightenment, ‘rationality’ has been an especially popular candidate for such an essence, which accounts for the widely held assumption that rationality is the aim of human development and is, therefore, the goal of education. Humanism tends to assert that individuals are entirely autonomous from their environment socially, biologically, and physically. Each individual is an atomistic center of consciousness and intentional action (e.g., free will). Humanists are often stridently anthropocentric and presume human beings are dramatically different from, and superior to, other modalities of being and, therefore, have the right to dominate nature, or even destroy it, if useful to their purposes. We agree all of these aspects. However, we also agree with Lindgren and Öhman (2019: p. 1201) when they say ‘humanism has other values that we may not want to abandon’. First, it emphasizes the inherent dignity of human beings, which enables commitment to such liberal values as democracy, freedom, equality, human rights, and social policies emphasizing human education and welfare. Second, the emphasis on effective agency helped free humankind from the control of the supernatural and from those who claim to have the special powers necessary for propitiating its demands. Third, without a species-typical sense of the human (or at least Homo sapiens), how are humans to be held accountable for their effect on the environment? Finally, why only speak of the post-human or post-Homo sapiens? Might we not speak of the post-Canid, post-Arachnid, or post-Serpentes? What is it that legitimizes the otherwise often criticized ‘human exceptionalism’ in this case?
Post-humanists sometimes overlook humanism’s achievements. For post-humanists, terms such as ‘human’ and ‘humanity’ have been shown to be historically shifting concepts subject to dramatic change. Post-humanists also reject anthropocentrism. Meanwhile, whatever sense one may wish to make of ‘humanity’ and ‘culture,’ they can only be understood as entangled with, and dependent upon, a more inclusive ecosystem. Therefore, the domination and destruction of the physical and biological environment is foolhardy. Meanwhile, if not discarded, issues of human agency are undergoing dramatic decentering. As we strongly endorse these kinds of critiques, we explore a possible way to dissolve this paradox between anthropocentric humanism and post-humanism by integrating one participant in the affairs of nature, human beings, with all other modalities of being in an endless course of cosmic care and creativity. We do so by turning to Eastern humanism. In particular, we focus on Tu Weiming’s (2001, 2010) notion of ‘anthropocosmism’ wherein ‘the human is embedded in the cosmic order, rather than an anthropocentric worldview, in which the human is alienated, either by choice or by default, from the natural world’ (Tu 2001: p. 244). 

In order to contextualize the above mentioned debates in environmental education and sustainability scholarship, we examine a small sample of high-quality papers referring to post-humanism and the Anthropocene that have appeared relatively recently in Environmental Education Research (Bonnett 2021, Taylor 2017, Mannion 2020, Rousell 2020, Ruck & Mannion 2020, Affifi 2020). Affifi (2020) implicitly captures the paradox between the Anthropocene and post-humanism by focusing on the ambivalence of ‘anthropocentrism.’ In order to move beyond ‘blanket condemnations and recommendations’ (1435), he argues both for being more careful in our diagnoses and prescriptions as well as for taking a more performative perspective, paying attention to the consequences our claims and conceptualizations actually bring about. ‘Unless the term “anthropocentric” is considered with more nuance, and in particular with an eye on what these concepts actually do,’ he warns, ‘environmental educators advocating “worldview” change are bound to continue debating at an overgeneralized and counterproductive level of abstraction’ (1437). He pursues a both/and instead of an either/or strategy that shows that a ‘a given thought, belief or practice is anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric’ (1435). According to Affifi, ‘acquainting ourselves with the paradox of (non)anthropocentrism is part of accepting the way we are interconnected within the world, a nonreductive practice that deepens ecological understanding’ (1428). This is the sort of thing we have in mind for resolving the paradox in environmental education between the Anthropocene and post-humanism. The task is to properly integrate the human aspect of nature as a participant in the affairs of nature. Tu Weiming’s anthropocosmism is one good way to do it. By discussing anthropocosmism, we also aim to move beyond a totalising defense or condemnation of ‘humanism’ as an (over)generalized worldview or paradigm. Instead, we engage with the—in our view more pertinent—question of what a specific (i.e., Eastern, neo-Confucian) humanist approach has to offer in relation to a specific, contextualized purpose. That is, we seek to understand and give shape to environmental education in a way that avoids hubristic, paternalistic human self-aggrandizement and domination while still taking into consideration human agency and responsibility for environmental destruction.

We discuss how Anthropocosmism can help dissolving the paradox of post-humanism in the Anthropocene by focusing on some central, Neo-Confucian ideas. Perhaps the most significant one is the idea of the ‘unity of Heaven and Humanity’ (tianrenheyi), which also embraces Earth (Tu 2001). Rather than a place apart, as in the Abrahamic monotheistic tradition, Heaven is here conceptualized as the generative, life-giving process in and through which the cosmos evolves. The basic idea is that the cosmos ‘is never a static structure but rather is a dynamic process. In its constant unfolding, it always generates new realities by creatively transforming the existing order’ (7307). Thus, the generative process for Confucians is neither supernatural nor something entirely managed or created by humans as it would be in an anthropocentric humanist perspective. Instead, Heaven, Humanity, and Earth emerge as an interconnected creative unity. Humans do not create the generative force; they are part of it. What is crucial here is that it is only by participating as a cocreator within it that one becomes human. Human creativity is part of cosmic creativity and the human ‘is an active participant in the cosmic process with the responsibility of care for the environment’ (Tu 2001: p. 249). An anthropocosmic stance thus results in an ethic of responsibility. While anthropocosmism preserves human self-assertion and (creative) agency, it likewise accords self-assertion and creative agency to plants, rocks, soil, and non-human animals as equal modalities within the ceaseless workings of Heaven (the generative force) and Earth (the effect of the Heaven). Hence, in an anthropocosmic universe, everything is exceptional. Humans should seek to coordinate and cooperate with the myriad things found in Heaven and Earth, not dominate them. This has profound implications for environmental and sustainability education, with which we conclude the paper.

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