행성(planet)’의 발견과 행성적 위기: 행성적 사유의 몇 가지 방향

The Discovery of ‘Planets’ and the Planetary Crisis: Several Approaches to Planetary Thinking

The contemporary era is one of ecological crisis. The crises humanity currently faces, such as pandemics, the climate crisis, and the Anthropocene, are products of the modern paradigm itself. As a result, the modern mindset and the academic disciplines built upon it are insufficient for properly understanding these challenges or devising effective solutions. The concepts of “planet” and “planetary thinking” emerged from this very realization. Nineteenth and twentieth-century concepts like “world” and “Earth” are centered on the premise of “humanity,” which establishes an ontological inequality and hierarchy between humans and non-humans. In contrast, the recent current of thought known as “planetary thinking” reinterprets the relationship between “humanity” and “nature” from the perspective of ontological equality. It further understands humans as just one of countless forms of life inhabiting the planet Earth. This paper examines how planetary thinking is being raised in social science, anthropological, and ecological directions. By doing so, it aims to confirm how planetary thinking deconstructs existing academic disciplines while offering new solutions to the novel problems confronting humanity.