Science, Philosophy and Sustainability

Science, Philosophy and Sustainability
Author: Angela Guimaraes Pereira
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2015-02-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 131763456X

For science to remain a legitimate and trustworthy source of knowledge, society will have to engage in the collective processes of knowledge co-production, which not only includes science, but also other types of knowledge. This process of change has to include a new commitment to knowledge creation and transmission and its role in a plural society. This book proposes to consider new ways in which science can be used to sustain our planet and enrich our lives. It helps to release and reactivate social responsibility within contemporary science and technology. It reviews critically relevant cases of contemporary scientific practice within the Cartesian paradigm, relabelled as 'innovation research', promoted as essential for the progress and well-being of humanity, and characterised by high capital investment, centralised control of funding and quality, exclusive expertise, and a reductionism that is philosophical as well as methodological. This is an accessible and relevant book for scholars in Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, and Science, Engineering and Technology Ethics. Providing an array of concrete examples, it supports scientists, engineers and technical experts, as well as policy-makers and other non-technical professionals working with science and technology to re-direct their approach to global problems, in a more integrative, self-reflective and humble direction.

Sustainability

Sustainability
Author: Bryan G. Norton
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0226595226

While many disciplines contribute to environmental conservation, there is little successful integration of science and social values. Arguing that the central problem in conservation is a lack of effective communication, Bryan Norton shows in Sustainability how current linguistic resources discourage any shared, multidisciplinary public deliberation over environmental goals and policy. In response, Norton develops a new, interdisciplinary approach to defining sustainability—the cornerstone of environmental policy—using philosophical and linguistic analyses to create a nonideological vocabulary that can accommodate scientific and evaluative environmental discourse. Emphasizing cooperation and adaptation through social learning, Norton provides a practical framework that encourages an experimental approach to language clarification and problem formulation, as well as an interdisciplinary approach to creating solutions. By moving beyond the scientific arena to acknowledge the importance of public discourse, Sustainability offers an entirely novel approach to environmentalism.

Sustainability Science

Sustainability Science
Author: Ariane König
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317216628

Sustainability Science: Key Issues is a comprehensive textbook for undergraduates, postgraduates, and participants in executive trainings from any disciplinary background studying the theory and practice of sustainability science. Each chapter takes a critical and reflective stance on a key issue or method of sustainability science. Contributing authors offer perspectives from diverse disciplines, including physics, philosophy of science, agronomy, geography, and the learning sciences. This book equips readers with a better understanding of how one might actively design, engage in, and guide collaborative processes for transforming human-environment-technology interactions, whilst embracing complexity, contingency, uncertainties, and contradictions emerging from diverse values and world views. Each reader of this book will thus have guidance on how to create and/or engage in similar initiatives or courses in their own context. Sustainability Science: Key Issues is the ideal book for students and researchers engaged in problem and project based learning in sustainability science.

Searching for Sustainability

Searching for Sustainability
Author: Bryan G. Norton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 568
Release: 2003
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780521007788

This book examines from a multidisciplinary viewpoint the question of what we mean - what we should mean - by setting sustainability as a goal for environmental management. The author, trained as a philosopher of science and language, explores ways to break down the disciplinary barriers to communication and deliberation about environment policy, and to integrate science and evaluations into a more comprehensive environmental policy. Choosing sustainability as the keystone concept of environmental policy, the author explores what we can learn about sustainable living from the philosophy of pragmatism, from ecology, from economics, from planning, from conservation biology and from related disciplines. The idea of adaptive, or experimental, management provides the context, while insights from various disciplines are integrated into a comprehensive philosophy of environmental management. The book will appeal to students and professionals in the fields of environmental policy and ethics, conservation biology, and philosophy of science.

Philosophy and Climate Science

Philosophy and Climate Science
Author: Eric Winsberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-04-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107195691

A comprehensive and accessible introduction, as well as an original contribution, to the main philosophical issues raised by climate science.

Sustainable Development in Science Policy-Making

Sustainable Development in Science Policy-Making
Author: Anna Schwachula
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2019-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3839448824

New knowledge, created in international cooperation, is essential for global sustainability. Set against this background, this study focuses on German science policy for research cooperation with developing countries and emerging economies in sustainability research. Based on interviews with policy makers and researchers, the book scrutinizes the actors, processes and contents of science policy in Germany. The author argues that science policy mainly aims at German economic benefits and technology development. This, however, negatively influences global sustainability. To counter existing path dependencies, the author provides recommendations for sustainability-oriented scientific practice and science policy.

Sustainability and the Philosophy of Science

Sustainability and the Philosophy of Science
Author: Jeffry L. Ramsey
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2023-09-19
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1003804004

This book demonstrates how the philosophy of science can enhance our understanding of sustainability and the practices we use to enact it. Examining assumptions about concepts, theories, evidence, and the moral ideals of sustainability can better orient us as we pursue this urgent and important goal. The book applies perspectives and tools from the philosophy of science – construed broadly to include portions of science and technology studies, history of science, and philosophy more generally – to sustainability discourse. It argues that widely held assumptions regarding the meaning of concepts, methods of theorizing and inferential practice, evidential structure, and ethics limit our understanding and practice of sustainability. It offers philosophical alternatives that capture more fully the confusing, wicked nature of sustainability challenges. The alternatives draw attention to existing but often undervalued frameworks in sustainability discourse. This book is aimed towards academics, researchers, and post-graduates working in sustainability, as well as philosophers of science and environmental philosophers interested in the philosophical issues raised by the pursuit of sustainability.

A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan Norton

A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan Norton
Author: Sahotra Sarkar
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-07-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319925970

This book provides a richly interdisciplinary assessment of the thought and work of Bryan Norton, one of most innovative and influential environmental philosophers of the past thirty years. In landmark works such as Toward Unity Among Environmentalists and Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management, Norton charted a new and highly productive course for an applied environmental philosophy, one fully engaged with the natural and social sciences as well as the management professions. A Sustainable Philosophy gathers together a distinguished group of scholars and professionals from a wide array of fields (including environmental philosophy, natural resource management, environmental economics, law, and public policy) to engage Norton’s work and its legacy for our shared environmental future. A study in the power of intellectual legacy and the real-world influence of philosophy, the book will be of great interest scholars and students in environmental philosophy, public policy and management, and environmental and sustainability studies. By considering the value and impact of Norton’s body of work it will also chart a course for the next generation of pragmatic environmental philosophers and sustainability scholars grappling with questions of environmental value, knowledge, and practice in a rapidly changing world.

Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity

Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity
Author: Jan Cornelius Schmidt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2021-12-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1315387085

Interdisciplinarity is a hallmark of contemporary knowledge production. This book introduces a Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity at the intersection of science, society and sustainability. In light of the ambivalence of the technosciences and the challenge of sustainable development in the Anthropocene, this engaged philosophy provides a novel critical perspective on interdisciplinarity in science policy and research practice. It draws upon the original spirit of interdisciplinarity as an environmentalist concept and advocates an essential change in human-nature relations. The author utilizes the rich tradition of philosophy for case study analysis and develops a framework to disentangle the various forms of inter- and transdisciplinarity. Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity offers a foundation for a critical-reflexive program of interdisciplinarity conducive to a sustainable future for our knowledge society and contributes to fields such as sustainability sciences, social ecology, environmental ethics, technology assessment, complex systems, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of science. It injects a fresh way of thinking on interdisciplinarity – and supports researchers as well as science policy makers, university managers, and academic administrators in critical-reflexive knowledge production for sustainable development.

Philosophy and the Precautionary Principle

Philosophy and the Precautionary Principle
Author: Daniel Steel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107078164

This book presents and defends an interpretation of the precautionary principle from the perspective of philosophy of science.