What Role for the Sciences in Anthropocene Politics? From Latour’s Sensing Loops to Arendt’s Common Sense

What role should the sciences play in a politically vibrant and just response to the Anthropocene crises? To engage this question, I contrast Latour’s and Arendt’s understanding of the role of sensing and sense-making in political action. Latour’s Gaian theory (especially his “sensing loops”) privileges the scientific ontology as a starting point for terrestrial politics. In contrast, Arendt’s phenomenological approach rooted political action in embodied experience contextualized through dialogue with others: in “common sense”. Emplaced and embodied transdisciplinary inquiry, I argue, offers a fertile starting point for an epistemologically just Anthropocene politics.