In this essay I scrutinize the non-anthropocentric discourses used by the social sciences and humanities narratives and critiques of the Anthropocene. Although not always predominant within the academic Anthropocene debate, such discursive strands remain politically and ethically inspiring and influential in that debate and for the public discourse concerning the epoch. I stress that these discourses inherit the hope for human progress that characterizes critical theory of the Frankfurt school, i.e. ‘critical hope’, a type of hope that renders the non-anthropocentric discourses self-contradictory. Even when they manage to escape the hold of critical hope, these discourses, I argue, suffer from ethical and political failings due to their inherent lack of focus on human–human relations and largely ahistorical nature. I conclude the essay by advocating an Anthropocene archaeology that remains critical of and learns from the ethical and political shortcomings of non-anthropocentric perspectives and making a related call for a slow archaeology of the Anthropocene.

中文翻译：

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关于批判的希望和非人类中心话语的人类学。人类世考古学的一些思考

在这篇文章中，我仔细研究了社会科学和人文学科对人类世的叙述和批评所使用的非人类中心论话语。尽管在学术人类世辩论中并不总是占主导地位，但这些话语在该辩论和有关该时代的公共话语中仍然具有政治和道德启发性和影响力。我强调，这些话语继承了法兰克福学派批判理论对人类进步的希望，即“批判希望”，这种希望使非人类中心论的话语自相矛盾。我认为，即使他们设法摆脱了批判性希望的束缚，这些话语也因缺乏对人际关系和很大程度上非历史性质的内在关注而遭受道德和政治上的失败。