16.00 Uhr, SR 3A, Institut für Philosophie, NIG, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien
Aktion Österreich - Slowakei, Wissenschafts- und Erziehungskooperation
Slovak-Austrian Environmental and Intercultural Philosophy Network
Environmental Political Philosophy in the Context of Anthropocene
The lecture by Richard Sťahel, Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences
The growing frequency and intensity of climatic extremes, the accelerating extinction of plant and animal species and the continuing pollution and devastation of all parts of Earth System shows that the Anthropocene is no longer just a scientific hypothesis but reality to which most of world ́s population is exposed, albeit not equally. However, majority of existing policy and society concepts have not yet taken these facts into account, so they are not adequate for current situation. The lecture focuses on possible philosophical starting points of environmental political philosophy in modern western political thinking. They can be seen in the reflection of the possibility of humanity self-destruction, in geographical (environmental) determinism, in the human rights concept, in the reinterpreted State of Nature concept and in the social contract concept. These concepts are considered as philosophical preconditions for the concept of environmental democracy as a utopian vision of a political system adequate to the Anthropocene climate regime.
Richard Sťahel is a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, where he holds the position of director of institute and the head of the Department of Environmental Philosophy. He specializes in environmental and political philosophy and the philosophy of human rights. He focuses on examining the causes of global industrial civilization crisis and the philosophical, social, and political consequences of climate change and the mass extinction of plant and animal species. He pays special attention to the philosophical aspects of Anthropocene, ecological civilization and environmental democracy concepts.
