Sustainability and Interdisciplinarity as an Existential Necessity within a Planetary Perspective

Abstract

Interdisciplinarity and sustainability have become fancy buzzwords in academia and beyond. Not unexpectedly, both terms have gained a certain kind of normativity based on a growing ethical demand from the public in Europe. Eventually, while the rising prominence of the elements of sustainability and interdisciplinarity suggests a certain kind of urgency, it paradoxically produces a mainstream of pretending without taking seriously on a very superficial level. In order to prevent from such deceptions, a shift towards a planetary perspective might be of crucial value since it reflects an approach that is genuinely sustainable and interdisciplinary. It is based on the conviction that the modern scientific paradigms fail us. They fail humanity not only on an epistemological level, but on an existential level that even threatens our very existence. In other words, the foundations of science are crucially related to the endangerment of the very existence of humankind and a variety of other living beings. This working paper sketches a few thoughts on interdisciplinarity and sustainability as genuine necessities within planetary thinking.

Keywords: Anthropocene, Posthumanism, extinction, Philosophy of Science, multidisciplinarity