The Anthropocene Discourse as a Historical Narrative

From the broader perspective of the almost 4.6 billion years of Earth history, it could be argued that the Anthropocene concept requires a revision of the notion of history itself and, in addition, a new view on historical processes and dynamics. By employing a comparative method of historical epistemology, three notions are guiding this project with the aim to reveal the significance of the Anthropocene discourse as a historical narrative: the Aristotelian notion of energy (ενέργεια) or potentiality/actuality (δύναμις/ενέργεια); the Japanese notion of becoming (naru), which appears in the ancient Japanese historiography in the eighth century CE; and the notion of process.