Philosophical conference: "What can philosophy tell us about the ecological crisis?"

January 17, 2024, 5:00 p.m. - January 17, 2024, 7:00 p.m.

Organized by the USMB's Languages, Literature, Societies, Cross-Border and International Studies (LLSETI) at USMB and the Association of Philosophy Teachers in Public Education, the series of philosophical lectures entitled "What work in a finite world?" continues on Wednesday, January 17 at 5 p.m. with a lecture entitled "What can the philosophy of the ecological crisis tell us?" This lecture will take place in Room 3, at the Savoie Mont Blanc University (USMB) Presidency, in Chambéry. It is open to all and no registration is required.

This presentation offers an introduction to environmental philosophies, demonstrating their usefulness not only in diagnosing the unprecedented ecological crisis we are experiencing, but also in attempting to address it. At the end of the 1970s, a number of environmental ethics developed that sought to morally qualify the relationship between humans and nature, questioning on the one hand the historical and conceptual roots of what we now call the Anthropocene, and, on the other hand, the ways in which we can justify why we should care about our living environments.

Should we respect them because they are useful to us or because they have intrinsic value? We will map out the different approaches, assessing their challenges and implications, to highlight the importance of speculative thinking, since it is this that underpins all practical decisions.

This lecture will be led by Céline Bonicco-Donato, professor of philosophy at ENSA Grenoble, University of Grenoble Alpes.

About the series "What work in a finite world?"

We only took note of the devastation caused by our unlimited transformation of nature and the world when that world threatened to become uninhabitable. But is it the transformation of the world in general that is at fault, or is it an economic model that subjects everything to commodification while perpetuating the logic of domination? In short: are humans not expelling themselves from the world by failing to question these models? We have begun to feel afraid, and with good reason. Understanding why and how we got to this point is, in any case, necessary if we want to take action to change the course of events, which is not inevitable. Discussing this question would reveal its political dimension as well as the social issues at stake.

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