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Document Details : Title: Answering Ecological Challenges Subtitle: Jean-Pierre Dupuy's 'Enlightened Catastrophism' Author(s): VAN CAMP, Etienne Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 84 Issue: 2 Date: 2022 Pages: 249-278 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.84.2.3291164 Abstract : For the first time in history, man-made catastrophes threaten to annihilate the totality of humanity and all life on earth. I argue that the two most common answers to this threat, ecomodernism and catastrophism, bring us even faster to the abyss of annihilation. Ecomodernism, with its attractive narrative of economic growth and happiness for all, leads in fact to an increased risk of a catastrophe. Catastrophism, with its inconvenient doomsday predictions, leads to a paralyzing message of total collapse. I then present Dupuy’s ‘enlightened catastrophism’ as an alternative, a middle road between ecomodernism’s blind faith in scientific progress and catastrophism’s doomsday prophecies. |
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