Event: The Philosophy of the Environment: New Perspectives
Date: Monday 29 April 2024
Time: 17:30
Venue: Hall B2, Gateway Building, University of Malta, Msida campus
Speaker: Dr Elena Casetta, from the University of Turin

Abstract

When Rachel Carson denounced the dangers of DDT in her book Silent Spring, the manifesto of Western environmentalism, the book was labelled “hysterical”, and Carson accused of being a communist.

Today, the general attitude towards environmental issues has changed: in the space of fifty years, environmental issues have risen to the top of the political agenda.

However, in reading the various environmental reports and policies produced by intergovernmental scientific organisations it is striking that the meaning of “environment” is generally taken for granted; it is not made explicit.

Based on her latest book, Filosofia dell'ambiente (Il Mulino 2023; English edition under contract), Dr Casetta’s seminar will discuss what a philosophy of the environment is (or could be), focusing in particular on the relationship between the artificial and the natural environment.

Bionote

Elena Casetta works at the Department of Philosophy and Education at the University of Turin (Italy), where she lectures on the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Biology.

Trained in theoretical philosophy, she then specialised in philosophy of biology at the Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris, and at the Centre for Philosophy of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.

She works mainly on environmental philosophy and the philosophy of biodiversity with a focus on conservation sciences. Her latest books are Brill’s Companion to the Philosophy of Biology (Brill, 2019), with A. Borghini; From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity (Springer, 2019), co-edited with D. Vecchi and J. Marques da Silva; Filosofia dell’ambiente (Il Mulino, 2023).

Further information is available by contacting the Department’s Research Seminars series convenor, Prof. Jean-Paul De Lucca.