Aesthetics, Sustainability and Education

Emily Brady

Aesthetics in the Field: Perceptual, Interpretive, and Narrative Methods in Environmental Aesthetics

In ‘Aesthetics in the Field’, I explore perceptual, interpretive, and narrative methods that can be used by the aesthetic subject to discover and identify aesthetic qualities in natural and semi-natural places. These methods are quasi-empirical and quasi-philosophical. Although not strongly empirical, qualitative, or quantitative, they bring together an empirically-minded approach with the rich material of philosophical environmental aesthetics. These methods, I argue, can bring attention to aesthetic features and qualities, ground the discovery of aesthetic values, and enable aesthetic knowledge of the more-than-human world. Such methods may also assist in developing ecological awareness and play a role in the formation of what I call the ‘ecological-aesthetic agent’, an agent that is active within a framework of ecological flourishing.

Ólafur Páll Jónsson

Hope and Material Reality

In this talk I will reflect on hope and materiality, with a particular focus on the question: Where can we anchor our lives in times of crises? While the good life, as understood by the Greeks, was grounded in the city-state, today we seem compelled to think beyond the horizon while at the same time being dependent on the materiality of our lives. Drawing on a passage from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, I discuss the horizon as marking the limits of actual knowledge and contrast this abstract view with a description from Henry David Thoreau’s journal, where the horizon formed by mountains in the distance appears as a concrete and textured material reality. For Thoreau, the mountains connect earth and heaven, matter and spirit, and this connection depends on their material presence. This scene is briefly compared with Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, whose abstraction lacks Thoreau’s sense of organic locality. Finally, I confront this material grounding with Václav Havel’s claim that hope must be anchored beyond the horizon, highlighting a tension between transcendence and material grounding that is central to understanding hope, particularly in education.

Martin Hauberg-Lund Laugesen

The educational value of horrible experiences: On why a turn to dark significant life experiences can be a key to better environmental and sustainability education

Since its publication in 2019, Dark Pedagogy: Education, Horror & the Anthropocene has received considerable attention (for instance at the annual ECER conference) and has garnered positive reviews in various international journals. During the past 3–4 years I have developed the concept and approach further and, in my talk, I will present and explain the educational meaning and value of ‘dark pedagogy’ in the context of environmental and sustainability education (ESE). I will do so with explicit reference to the research on ‘significant life experiences’ (SLE) understood to be crucial for the development of pro-environmental values, attitudes and actions. Since the inception of SLE in 1980, researchers such as Thomas Tanner, Louise Chawla, Fernando Ecchari and Shih-Jang Hsu have presented interesting theoretical and empirical work on the concept and approach of SLE. I consider dark pedagogy to be one among several strands of SLE approaches to teaching ESE in practice. In my talk, I will also consider dark SLE’s implications for ‘political Bildung’ (Oskar Negt) and ‘subjectification’ (Gert Biesta) considered as two of the didactical goals of ESE. In this regard, my argumentation relies on findings from contemporary climate psychology focusing on what I call ‘the pedagogical potentials of negative affects’ such as grief (Alfred Sköld), despair (Jakob Huber), anxiety (Caroline Hickman), worry (Maria Ojala) and indignation/anger (Marion Grau).

Mariagrazia Portera

Has the value-free ideal of science ever truly belonged to scientists? The case of biological conservation sciences between aesthetics and philosophy of science

This talk examines the role of aesthetic values in the processes of constructing scientific knowledge. Focusing specifically on biological conservation sciences, I will intertwine an aesthetic perspective with the current debate in the philosophy of science against the value-free ideal of science. Scholars such as Douglas (2009), Elliott (2017), and Brown (2020) have made a compelling case for the proper recognition of non-epistemic values in the production of scientific knowledge. In light of the increasingly persuasive argument that values are inseparably linked to how scientific knowledge is framed, designed, developed, and communicated, what is the specific role of aesthetic values – and aesthetics in general – within science? Within the broader “science and values” debate, aesthetic values have so far occupied a marginal position, receiving far less attention than social, cultural, political, or economic values. I will argue for a conception of the aesthetic not as a peripheral element that supplements the scientific approach to conservation, but rather as an inquiry, a domain, and a perspective whose exploration emerges as a necessity from the very heart of scientific investigation – as its very condition of possibility.

Marta Tafalla

The Aesthetic Appreciation of Species and Ecosystems in the Context of the Ecological Crisis

Aesthetic appreciation of species and ecosystems can contribute in multiple ways to addressing the current ecological crisis since it facilitates processes of reconnection and reconciliation with other living beings. It can also provide experiences of deep physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual pleasure, through which we may compensate for the renunciation of other, less sustainable pleasures (such as compulsive consumerism or long-distance tourism) that are required in order to pursue simpler and more ascetic ways of life aimed at mitigating the ecological crisis. However, aesthetics is not an easy discipline, and aesthetic experiences can also be problematic and may even end up being harmful to other living beings and natural elements. In this contribution, I examine four problems that may arise in the aesthetic appreciation of species and ecosystems and offer some suggestions on how they might be addressed.

Henrik Zinkernagel

Aesthetics of Nature and Science as Pathways to Sustainability

An influential argument in environmental aesthetics holds that aesthetic experiences of nature can foster a more caring relationship with the natural world, and thereby support more sustainable values and attitudes. In this talk, I examine and defend this argument, and suggest that it can be strengthened by incorporating aesthetic aspects of natural science. I focus on the transformative potential of aesthetic experiences: Immediate impressions of beauty, wonder, surprise, or even the unsettling may, when given time and space for reflection, deepen into aesthetic insights that move us and allow us to see the world — and our place within it — in a new light. Such insights can lead to increased awareness of and care for nature. I propose a simple model, moving from impression, through reflection, to insight, that may help integrate the aesthetics of nature and science into sustainability education and communication.