CEPA Seminar Series 2022-23 - ‘“We Should all in Part be Naturalists”

Wednesday, 21 June 2023 , 2:00 PM

Critical Environmental Philosophy and the Changing Face of Environmental Education in England

Dr Robert Booth (Liverpool Hope)

Zoom

Meeting ID: 845 2506 5050 Password: 583297

In response to a worsening climate and ecological crisis, the UK Department for Education has recently published a policy strategy which intends to link increased climate literacy with transformational change via satisfaction of two aspects of effective environmental education: the ontological aspect, by which pupils better grasp ‘their place in nature’; and the affective aspect, by which pupils are motivated to protect and value nature. Here, with the help of critical environmental philosophers, I argue that the strategy’s reliance on a strong ontological naturalism appears counterproductive to its noble aims insofar as it unduly limits critical reflection upon the more problematic affect and action-guiding assumptions underlying the entities that mainstream science reveals.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr Robert Booth is a Senior Professional Tutor in Philosophy and Ethics at Liverpool Hope University. Most of his work asks how the respective theoretical insights of phenomenology, feminist theory, and new realism might helpfully reorient our approaches to various environmental and social problems. His most recent monograph Becoming a Place of Unrest: Environmental Crisis and Ecophenomenological Praxis is out now with Ohio University Press.

For further inquiries tillsoj@hope.ac.uk

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