Download or read book Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy written by Malte Faber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's world – despite the dramatic anthropogenic environmental changes – a proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature requires a certain detachment. The pressing problems in their whole extent will only be fully understood and solved with comprehensive and patient analysis. Accordingly, this book develops new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology, ecology, and the economy, integrated within a framework of a terminology specially devised by the authors. By illuminating the epistemological backgrounds of ecological-economic research, the authors lay foundations for interdisciplinary environmental research and offer guidelines for practical action. In close contact to the findings of present-day biology and economics, they demonstrate the fruitfulness as well as the shortcomings of modern science for the understanding of the proper place of humankind in nature. Many of the book's central concepts are rooted in a tradition whose origins go back to European philosophy and literature of the 17th Century. Frequently current problems in the fields of economics, ecology, politics, philosophy and biology are discussed in a kind of "dialogue" with thinkers and poets like Bacon, Quesnay, Kant, Goethe and Novalis. This approach of the book, known in Continental European Philosophy as hermeneutics, offers a ‘map’, rather than marking out a specific course. On the other hand, the book offers traits of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought: a precise, analytical approach to theory and a pragmatic approach to action. Both approaches are used by the authors complementarily. Thus the authors lay the foundations for an ecological economical and political practice which is able to tackle concrete environmental problems on an encompassing and long-term basis. This translated volume will be of great use and interest to students of ecology, economics and in particular environmental education, sustainable development and environmental ethics.
Download or read book Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy written by Malte Michael Faber and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Parallax of Growth written by Ole Bjerg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parallax of Growth explores the ideas of economy and ecology and the factors that have put them on a collision course. Bjerg argues that our current mode of economic organization is characterized by an inherent debt drive, whereby the creation of money through the issuance of commercial bank credit has locked our economy into a vicious circle of forced growth and increasing debt. Parallax of Growth is not a catalogue of solutions to the ecological or the economic crisis. The book aims to shift the inquiry from what shall we do? to why have we not already done it? In order to address the challenges of our contemporary times of crisis, we need to understand how the idea of growth is deeply ingrained in the ideology as well as the organization of our society. The book aims to open the space for philosophical thinking about this important issue.
Download or read book The Politics of Sustainability written by Dieter Birnbacher and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responsibility for future generations is easily postulated in the abstract but it is much more difficult to set it to work in the concrete. It requires some changes in individual and institutional attitudes that are in opposition to what has been called the "systems variables" of industrial society: individual freedom, consumerism, and equality. The Politics of Sustainability from Philosophical Perspectives seeks to examine the motivational and institutional obstacles standing in the way of a consistent politics of sustainability and to look for strategies to overcome them. It argues that though there have been significant changes in individual and especially collective attitudes to growth, intergenerational solidarity and nature preservation, it is far from certain whether these will be sufficient to encourage politicians into giving sustainable policies priority over other legitimate concerns. Having a philosophical approach as its main focus, the volume is at the same time interdisciplinary in combining political, psychological, ecological and economic analyses. This book will be a contribution to the joint effort to meet the theoretical and practical challenges posed by climate change and other impending global perils and will be of interest to students of environmental studies, applied ethics and environmental psychology.
Download or read book Economics as a Political Muse written by M.K. Deblonde and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks afresh, from a philosophical perspective, on the role economic theory plays in present-day ecological policy. It starts from fundamental questions concerning the nature of the problem of sustainability, of politics, and of economic science. It confronts the results of this investigation with the theoretical work of two prominent present-day economists. This book is written at a high academic level. It will be of interest to environmentalists, environmental economists, and for policy people charged with ecological problems.
Download or read book The Economy of the Earth written by Mark Sagoff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-03 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Sagoff draws on the last twenty years of debate over the foundations of environmentalism in this comprehensive revision of The Economy of the Earth. Posing questions pertinent to consumption, cost-benefit analysis, the normative implications of neo-Darwinism, the role of the natural in national history, and the centrality of the concept of place in environmental ethics, he analyses social policy in relation to the environment, pollution, the workplace, and public safely and health. Sagoff distinguishes ethical from economic questions and explains which kinds of concepts, arguments, and processes are appropriate to each. He offers a critique 'preference' and 'willingness to pay' as measures of value in environmental economics and defends political, cultural, aesthetic, and ethical reasons to protect the natural environment.
Download or read book Transformative Ecological Economics written by Ove Jakobsen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we look at the state of the world today, what is most evident is the fact that the major problems of our time – energy, environment, economy, climate change and social justice – cannot be understood in isolation. They are interconnected problems, which means that they require corresponding systemic solutions. Today’s global economy has brought about critical distress for ecosystems and societies and we have to go to the very root of the problems to find a way out. This volume develops a synthesized interpretation of ecological economics integrating different levels: (economic) system, (business) practice and the (economic) actor. It discusses how changes on a systems level are connected to changes in practice and development of individual consciousness. Transformative Ecological Economics delves into the insight and knowledge from different sources of inspiration (thermodynamics, Darwinism, anthroposophy and Buddhism) as well as into an integrated story describing and illustrating the core ideas, principles and values that characterize a utopian society anchored in ecological economics. Implementation of the deep changes demanded depends on our ability to write a new story, a utopian one for sure, but one which is in accordance with and based on the reality in which we live. This book will be of interest to those who study ecological economics, political economy and environmental economics.
Download or read book The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book Philosophy Ecology Economics written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a philosophical approach this book explores ethical aspects of the treatment of nonhumans, the planet, and its resources by humans. Questions of what we have done to the planet, what we are doing now, and what should be done differently are explored as is the question as to whether beings other than humans have a value of their own, not just one assigned by humans.
Download or read book Sustainability Beyond Technology written by Pasi Heikkurinen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current debates on sustainability are largely building on a problematic assumption that increasing technology use and advancement are a desired phenomenon, creating positive change in human organizations. This kind of techno-optimism prevails particularly in the discourses of ecological modernization and green growth, as well as in the attempts to design sustainable modes of production and consumption within growth-driven capitalism. This transdisciplinary book investigates the philosophical underpinnings of technology, presents a culturally sensitive critique to technology, and outlines feasible alternatives for sustainability beyond technology. It draws on a variety of scholarly disciplines, including the humanities (philosophy and environmental history), social sciences (ecological economics, political economy, and ecology) and natural sciences (geology and thermodynamics) to contribute to sustainability theory and policy. By examining the conflicts and contradictions between technology and sustainability in human organization, the book develops a novel way to conceptualize, confront, and change technology in modern society.
Download or read book Environment and Social Theory written by John Barry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in an accessible and jargon-free way, Environment and Social Theory examines: * the historical relationship between social theory and the environment *pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment social theory and the environment * twentieth century social theory and the environment * economic theory and the environment * the relationship between ecology, biology and social theory * recent theoretical approaches to the environment * the development of a green social theory The ideas and vies of key theorists including Hobbes, Locke, freud, Habermas, Giddens and Beck are discussed to provide comprehensive coverage of social theory for non-specialist readers.
Download or read book Ecological Economics written by Gareth Edwards-Jones and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological economics is an exciting interdisciplinary field of study that combines insights from the natural sciences, economics, philosophy and other fields to develop innovative approaches to environmental problems. It draws on a wide range of analytical perspectives, some radical others more conventional, to build a more complete understanding of human-ecosystem interactions. Current research in the field includes work on nature conservation, land use planning, pollution control, natural resource management, and environmental impact assessment/evaluation. Ecological Economics provides a comprehensive introduction to the core themes, presented in a clearly structured style, with chapters tailored specifically to readers without any economic or philosophical training. There is an emphasis throughout on the complementary roles of economics, ethics and ecology in environmental decision-making processes. The book reviews the evolution of important ideas in the field, explores the fundamental philosophies underlying different approaches to environmental problems, explains in detail the specific tools and techniques used in these approaches, and gives numerous examples of how they can be applied. Special importance is attached to understanding both the advantages and limitations of different analyses, in order to provide a balanced and coherent view of how these different approaches interrelate and how their roles vary in different contexts. Written by three authors specializing in ecology, economics and philosophy, this textbook provides an excellent introduction to the field of ecological economics for students in the natural sciences and other environmental disciplines. It will also be of interest to a wide range of professionals and researchers involved in environmental management and policy, and thers including economists seeking to broaden their knowledge of new methodologies and approaches. Further reading suggestions and extensive references are provided for those interested in pursuing particular themes beyond the introductory level. The first introductory ecological economics text written specifically for natural scientists. Assumes no prior knowledge of economics or philosophy. Emphasises the complementary roles of ecology, economics and ethics in environmental decision-making processes. An emphasis on clarity and accessibility throughout.
Download or read book Ecology Is Permanent Economy written by George Alfred James and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2013-06-20 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, Sunderlal Bahuguna has been an environmental activist in his native India, well known for his efforts on behalf of the Himalayas and its people. In the 1970s, he was instrumental in the successful Chipko (or "hug") movement during which local people hugged trees to prevent logging for outside concerns. He was also a leader of the long opposition to the Tehri Dam. In both conflicts, the interests of outsiders threatened the interests of local people living relatively traditional lives. George Alfred James introduces Sunderlal Bahuguna's activism and philosophy in a work based on interviews with Bahuguna himself, his writings, and journalistic accounts. James writes that Bahuguna's work in the Indian independence movement and his admiration for the nonviolence of Gandhi has inspired a vision and mode of activism that deserves wider attention. It is a philosophy that does not try to win the conflict, but to win the opponent's heart.
Download or read book The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization written by Arran Gare and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.
Download or read book The Bankruptcy of Economics Ecology Economics and the Sustainability of the Earth written by Joseph Wayne Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in times of uncertainty and insecurity, at a personal, national and global level. Writers such as Samuel P. Huntington and Robert D. Kaplan, respectively, have spoken of an emerging 'clash of civilizations' and of 'coming anarchy'. This book is also concerned with the future of civilization, in particular with the conflict between economic growth and the sustainability of the biophysical lifesupport systems of the planet, arguing that the flawed system of orthodox neo-classical economics has justified the modernist belief in the necessity of unending economic growth and the ceaseless exploitation of nature.
Download or read book Environmental Political Philosophy written by Wojciech W. Gasparski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need for solutions to environmental problems is urgent. Expanded environmental research and knowledge, along with interest in environmental issues, has focused attention on the social, political, and practical aspects of environmental problems. Environmental Political Philosophy searches for common environmental goals, values, and policies in society. An essential undercurrent in political theory about the environment is that such issues are not questions of efficiency or technology. They cannot simply be addressed through knowledge of processes and mechanics of nature, by boosting or targeting research, or by allocating of resources and development of technology. Neither can they be resolved solely by increasing civic understanding and mounting environmental campaigns or requiring endless eco-friendly actions. A crucial element of environmental political philosophy is highlighted through the studies in this volume, which address the question of what constitutes efficient action or effective decision making. Praxiology commences with empirical orientation, but does so by maintaining the important sense that in the evaluation of actions and policies, ethical considerations must be employed in conjunction with effectiveness and efficiency.
Download or read book The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book written by Donald VanDeVeer and published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text and sourcebook crosses disciplinary boundaries and attends seriously to economic reasoning and its implications for environmental policy issues while taking a broad view of questions of ethics. It is appropriate and valuable not only for philosophy and environmental science students but also for students of economics, biology, engineering, and public policy.
Download or read book Foundations of Economic Evolution written by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ÔThis book is an ambitious intellectual enterprise to build a naturalistic foundation for economics, with amazingly vast knowledge of physical, biological, social sciences and philosophy. Readers will discover that approaches and insights emergent in institutional studies, (social)-neuroscience, network theory, ecological economics, bio-culture dualistic evolution, etc. are persuasively placed in a grand unified frame. It is written in a good Hayekian tradition. I recommend this book particularly to young readers who aspire to go beyond a narrowly specified discipline in the age of expanding communicability of knowledge and ideas.Õ Ð Masahiko Aoki, Stanford University, US ÔCarsten Herrmann-PillathÕs new book is an in-depth application of natural philosophy to economics that draws up an entirely new framework for economic analysis. It offers path-breaking insights on the interactions between human economic activity and nature and outlines a convincing solution to the long-standing reductionism controversy. A must-read for everyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of economics as a science.Õ Ð Ulrich Witt, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany ÔÒBig pictureÓ philosophy of economics drifted into a dull cul-de-sac as it became obsessively focused on falsifiability and rationality. In this book Carsten Herrmann-Pilath pushes the field back onto the open highway by locating economics in the larger frameworks of metaphysics, evolutionary dynamics and information theory. This is large-scale, ambitious synthesis of ideas of the kind we expect from time to time to see devoted to physics and biology. Why should economics merit anything less? But of course this kind of intellectual tapestry must await the appearance of an unusually devoted scholar with special patience and eccentric independence from the pressure for quick returns that characterizes academic life. In the person of Hermann-Pilath this scholar has appeared. No one who wants to examine economics whole and in its richest context should miss his virtuoso performance in this book.Õ Ð Don Ross, University of Cape Town, South Africa and Georgia State University, US ÔHerrmann-PillathÕs work attempts to bring to bear upon the discipline of economics perspectives from other discourses which have been burgeoning recently Ð namely, thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, and semiotics, aiming at a consilience contextualized by economic activity and problems. This marks the work as a contemporary example of natural philosophy, which is now at the doorstep of a revival. The overall perspective is that human economic activity is an aspect of the ecology of the earthÕs surface, viewing it as an evolving physical system mediated through distributed mentality as expressed in technology evolution. Knowledge is taken to be ÔphysicalÕ with a performative function, as in PeirceÕs pragmaticism. Thus, the social meanings of expectations, prices, and credit are found to be rooted in energy flows. The work draws its foundation from Hegel and C.S. Peirce and its immediate guidance from Hayek, Veblen and Georescu-Roegen. The author generates an energetic theory of economic growth, guided by OdumÕs maximum power principle. Economic discourse itself is reworked in the final chapter, in light of the examinations of the previous chapters, naturalizing economics within an extremely powerful contemporary framework.Õ Ð Stanley N. Salthe, Binghamton University, US ÔAn Oscar-winning performance in the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs hard to know which to praise first: Carsten Herrmann-PillathÕs humility or his ambition. He says his book Òis not a great intellectual featÓ because he pursues the Òhumble taskÓ of putting together Òthe ideas of others.Ó When he finally gets to economics he tries to Òbe as simple as possibleÓ and to conceive of economics in terms of the basics, at Òundergraduate level, so to say.Ó On the other hand, the scale of his ambition is to rethink the foundations of economics from first principles, while, at the same time, holding a running dialogue between contemporary sciences and classic philosophy. HeÕs much too modest, of course, because Foundations is a major achievement, but his modesty points to what makes it such a powerful treatise: the book is not about his preferences or prejudices; it is a Òscientific approach that aims at establishing truthful propositions about reality.Ó That is much harder to achieve than grand theories or Òcomplicated mathematics,Ó because it amounts to a new modern synthesis of the field Ð an achievement on a par with Julian HuxleyÕs, whose own modern synthesis of evolutionary theories in the 1940s allowed for the explosive growth of the biosciences over the next decades. The structure of the book is simple enough, providing a framework for the Ònaturalistic turnÓ in economics. Starting from material existence, causation and evolution, Herrmann-Pillath takes us through four fundamental concepts Ð individuals, networks, institutions and technology Ð before coming finally to the Òrealm of economics proper,Ó i.e. markets. However, Herrmann-Pillath believes that the Òfoundations of economics cannot be found within economicsÓ but only in dialogue with other sciences, or what he calls the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs a theatre in which various characters come and go, where dialogue ebbs and flows, conflicts arise and are resolved, and where individual actions can be seen as concepts as, leading to higher levels of meaning as the plot unfolds. The magic of theatre, of course, is that the point of intelligibility, where the characters, actions and narrative resolve into meaningfulness, is projected out of the drama itself, into the spectator. ThatÕs you, dear reader. So it is with economics as a discipline. Economics is a player in a much larger performance about what constitutes knowledge, and how we know that. It is also a player in the economy it seeks to explain. To understand why money, firms, growth, prices, markets and other staples of economic thought emerge and function the way they do, it is necessary situate the analysis beyond economics (and the economy), and to engage with developments across the human, evolutionary and complexity sciences. This is what Herrmann-Pillath does, analyzing a breathtaking range of illuminating and sometimes challenging work along the way. We are treated to new ideas about the externalized brain, the evolution of knowledge in the Earth System (i.e. not just among humans), the role of signs and performativity in these processes, as well as that of Òenergetic transformations.Ó But Herrmann-Pillath is not satisfied with the ÒmodestÓ task of bringing the best of modern scientific thought to bear on economic concepts and performances; he really does harbor a deeper purpose. The clue is in his apparently quixotic desire to hang on to philosophical insights associated with pre-evolutionary thinkers like Aristotle and Hegel, and his apparently eccentric desire to place the semiotic philosophy of C.S. Pierce at center stage. But the patient observer will see that he is not seeking to change the facts by imposing idealist notions on them after the event. Instead, he is arguing for a change in the way we perform ourselves in the face of these facts. He is looking for a modern-day equivalent of Confucius or Socrates: one who can imagine values and beliefs that Òdefine the human species in a new way.Ó For those who have eyes to see, as the drama unfolds, it may be that we have found such a figure in Carsten Herrmann-Pillath himself, modesty, ambition and all. This is ÒCultural ScienceÓ as it should be done.Õ Ð John Hartley, Curtin University, Australia and Cardiff University, UK
