CULTURAL REGIMES OF UNCERTAINTY: FROM RENAISSANCE FORTUNE TO THE ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
Abstract
The article examines the evolution of cultural regimes of uncertainty as historically variable ways of culturally interpreting randomness – from the Renaissance conception of Fortune to the ecological consciousness of the Anthropocene. The notion of a “cultural regime of uncertainty” is introduced as an authorial category denoting the set of symbolic practices, images, and modes of interpreting the future through which a culture seeks to render an uncertain world intelligible and amenable to action. Renaissance culture is considered as a regime in which uncertainty is conceptualized through the image of Fortune and the opposition fortuna/virtù, where randomness appears as a space of human agency and the realization of freedom. The experience of the Great Geographical Discoveries is interpreted as a practical embodiment of this logic of risk and openness to the unknown. By contrast, the ecological consciousness of the Anthropocene forms a regime in which uncertainty appears not as a temporary consequence of insufficient knowledge but as a fundamental characteristic of the interaction between humanity and planetary ecological systems. Particular attention is given to Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects, which describes hyperscale ecological phenomena that exceed the limits of human experience. The comparative analysis reveals a transition from a personified to a planetary understanding of randomness, and from a logic of mastering uncertainty to a logic of coexistence with it, which reflects one of the fundamental transformations of cultural consciousness on the path from the Renaissance to the Anthropocene.
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References
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