In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Vincent Lam (University of Bern) will give a talk titled “Anthropocene, planetary boundaries and tipping points: interdisciplinarity and values in Earth system science”
The seminar takes place in person at Metsätalo and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 23rd of September 2024. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.
Perspectives on Science is a research seminar which brings together experts from the philosophy of science and several fields of science studies. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar can be found on the TINT web page https://tint.helsinki.fi.
Abstract:
Earth system science (ESS) and modelling have given rise to a new conceptual framework in the recent decades, which goes much beyond climate science. Indeed, Earth system science and modelling have the ambition “to build a unified understanding of the Earth”, involving not only the physical Earth system components (atmosphere, cryosphere, land, ocean, lithosphere) but also all the relevant human and social processes interacting with them. This unified understanding that ESS aims to achieve raises a number of epistemological issues about interdisciplinarity. We argue that the interdisciplinary relations in ESS between natural and social / human sciences are best characterized in terms of what is called ‘scientific imperialism’ in the literature and we show that this imperialistic feature has some detrimental epistemic and non-epistemic effects, notably when addressing the issue of values in ESS. This paper considers in particular the core ESS concepts of Anthropocene, planetary boundaries and tipping points in the light of the philosophy of science discussions on interdisciplinarity and values. We show that acknowledging the interconnections between interdisciplinarity and values suggests ways for ESS to move forward in view of addressing the climate and environmental challenges.
Author bio:
Vincent Lam is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) professor in the Institute of Philosophy and at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) at the University of Bern, where he is leading the Epistemology of Climate Change project (philoclimate.ch). He is also a Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. Between 2018 and 2021 he held a Chair of Excellence in Philosophy of Quantum Physics at the University of Grenoble Alpes. Besides his work in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science, his current research concerns the philosophy of climate and Earth system sciences, as well as, more broadly, philosophical issues related to the climate and global environmental challenges.