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Epistemology and Climate Change

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posted on 2023-05-24, 06:36 authored by David CoadyDavid Coady
Referring to public and academic debate about climate change, Philip Kitcher has said that it is “an embarrassment that philosophers have not contributed more to this necessary conversation” (2010: 6). This is not entirely fair. There are philosophers who have made important contributions to this conversation, the vast majority of these contributions, however, come from a single area of philosophy: ethics. This is unfortunate since public and academic debate about climate change is certainly not restricted in this way. Much of it (perhaps most of it) is about epistemic issues, rather than ethical issues. In other words, it is about what we should believe and what we can know, rather than about what we should do or how we should live. Epistemic questions are not only prominent in the public debate about climate change, they are also, in a clear sense, logically prior to the ethical questions. As Rousseau observed, “what one ought to do depends largely on what one ought to believe” (1782: Third Walk). For these reasons, it is clear that epistemologists qua epistemologists (and not merely in their capacity as global citizens) are obliged to contribute to the debate about climate change.

History

Publication title

The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology

Editors

M Fricker, PJ Graham, D Henderson, NJLL Pedersen

Pagination

466-473

ISBN

9781138858510

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

Routlege

Place of publication

New York

Extent

46

Rights statement

Copyright 2020 Taylor & Francis

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Understanding climate change not elsewhere classified; Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies

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