Ignorance, Environmental Philosophy, and Academia
The Limits of Institutional Knowledge in an Age of Environmental Crisis
Ignorance, Environmental Philosophy, and Academia
The Limits of Institutional Knowledge in an Age of Environmental Crisis
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Description
This book argues that environmental crisis exposes limits of institutional knowledge. Institutions frame environmental problems through risk, uncertainty, evidence, and management. However, some forms of destruction cannot be identified as stable objects of knowledge, calculation, or responsibility. Watanabe calls this limit radical ignorance: not a lack of information, but the point at which conditions for identifying harm, assigning responsibility, and making justified decisions fail.
Drawing on environmental philosophy, epistemology, phenomenology, systems theory, Buddhism, and ethics, Watanabe examines how academia acknowledges uncertainty yet excludes what cannot become an admissible object of knowledge. He reconsiders precaution, progress, responsibility, and ethical response, arguing that ignorance is not merely something to overcome but a limit requiring environmental ethics to rethink knowledge, action, and responsibility.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I Science and Ignorance-Risk, Uncertainty, and Ignorance
1 The Structure of Scientific Risk Assessment: The Trap of Measurability and Prediction
2 The Precautionary Principle, the Catastrophe Principle, and the Limit Indicated by Ignorance
3 The Philosophy of Ignorance and a Critique of Science: Beyond Uncertainty
4 The Problem of Scale
Part II Philosophy and Ignorance
5 Recovery and Reduction
6 What Is Ignorance?
7 The Problem of Identity
8 The Problem of Uniformity
9 The Problem of Self-Evidence
10 The Problem of Logicality
Part III The Institutional Loop
11 Phenomenology and the Sciences
12 The Institutional Loop: Nietzsche, Systems Theory, and Pluralism
13 The Structure of Recovery: A Non-Western Perspective
Part IV Ethics in an Age of Ignorance
14 Academia (Science) and Ignorance
15 Progressivism: The Institutional Limits of Knowledge and Responsibility
16 The Possibility of Ethical Response in an Age of Ignorance
17 Ethical Response at the Limit of Ignorance
Conclusion: The Critical Point of Ethics: Beyond the Illusion of Respondability
Product details
| Published | Dec 24 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 264 |
| ISBN | 9798216379539 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Series | Environment and Society |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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