IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v149y2018icp212-225.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Case for a New Discipline: Technosphere Science

Author

Listed:
  • Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten

Abstract

This paper submits the philosophical case for establishing ‘technosphere science’ that draws on results of many other disciplines, reaching from physics to the social sciences and humanities. I present claims about the type of entities that are studied by technosphere science and their causal relationships, and introduce central organizing concepts, such as ‘information’ and ‘function’. Agency is no longer seen as a property exclusive to humans, but as being distributed in networks of ontologically diverse entities. Technosphere science draws on various uses of the concept of ‘networks’ across disciplines, such as scaling laws and builds on a universal evolutionary framework that generalizes over biological evolution. In this perspective, the economy is the medium by which human action becomes functional relative to the reproduction and growth of the technosphere. I conclude with showing how human autonomy and ethical commitments remain possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten, 2018. "The Case for a New Discipline: Technosphere Science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 212-225.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:149:y:2018:i:c:p:212-225
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917315677
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert U. Ayres & Benjamin Warr, 2009. "The Economic Growth Engine," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13324.
    2. Timothy Garrett, 2011. "Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 437-455, February.
    3. Cimoli, Mario & Dosi, Giovanni, 1995. "Technological Paradigms, Patterns of Learning and Development: An Introductory Roadmap," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 243-268, September.
    4. Richard Monastersky, 2015. "Anthropocene: The human age," Nature, Nature, vol. 519(7542), pages 144-147, March.
    5. Allen,Robert C., 2009. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521868273.
    6. Gowdy, John & Krall, Lisi, 2013. "The ultrasocial origin of the Anthropocene," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 137-147.
    7. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, 2013. "Foundations of Economic Evolution," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12844.
    8. Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 185-206, Winter.
    9. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    10. Michel Callon, 2008. "Economic markets and the rise of interactive agencements: from prosthetic agencies to "habilitated" agencies"," Post-Print hal-00819091, HAL.
    11. Herbert A. Simon, 1996. "The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262691914, April.
    12. Philippe Faist & Frédéric Dupuis & Jonathan Oppenheim & Renato Renner, 2015. "The minimal work cost of information processing," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, November.
    13. Sciubba, Enrico, 2011. "What did Lotka really say? A critical reassessment of the “maximum power principle”," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(8), pages 1347-1353.
    14. Frechette, Guillaume R. & Schotter, Andrew (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Experimental Economic Methodology," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195328325.
    15. Sorrell, Steve, 2015. "Reducing energy demand: A review of issues, challenges and approaches," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 74-82.
    16. Ulrich Witt, 2016. "The Evolution of Consumption and Its Welfare Effects," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Chai & Chad M. Baum (ed.), Demand, Complexity, and Long-Run Economic Evolution, pages 117-139, Springer.
    17. Sorrell, Steve, 2009. "Jevons' Paradox revisited: The evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1456-1469, April.
    18. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    19. Julius, Daniel J & DiGiovanni, Nicholas Jr, 2013. "ACADEMIC COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: On Campus Fifty Years," University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education qt4ff7029k, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.
    20. Ulrich Witt, 2008. "What is specific about evolutionary economics?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 547-575, October.
    21. Witt, Ulrich, 2005. "'Production' in nature and production in the economy--second thoughts about some basic economic concepts," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 165-179, June.
    22. Geerat Vermeij, 2009. "Comparative economics: evolution and the modern economy," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 105-134, August.
    23. John F. Padgett & Doowan Lee & Nick Collier, 2003. "Economic production as chemistry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 12(4), pages 843-877, August.
    24. Kümmel, Reiner & Lindenberger, Dietmar & Weiser, Florian, 2015. "The economic power of energy and the need to integrate it with energy policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 833-843.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarah-Louise Ruder & Sophia Rose Sanniti, 2019. "Transcending the Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological Economics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-29, March.
    2. Ignacio Bergillos, 2021. "Approaches to the Anthropocene from Communication and Media Studies," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-12, September.
    3. Otto, Ilona M. & Wiedermann, Marc & Cremades, Roger & Donges, Jonathan F. & Auer, Cornelia & Lucht, Wolfgang, 2020. "Human agency in the Anthropocene," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten, 2015. "Energy, growth, and evolution: Towards a naturalistic ontology of economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 432-442.
    2. Victor Court, 2018. "Energy Capture, Technological Change, and Economic Growth: An Evolutionary Perspective," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-27, September.
    3. Timothy J. Garrett, 2016. "Long-run evolution of the global economy - Part 2: Hindcasts of innovation and growth," Papers 1601.00233, arXiv.org.
    4. Joe Ament, 2019. "Toward an Ecological Monetary Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, February.
    5. Kaitlin Kish & Joshua Farley, 2021. "A Research Agenda for the Future of Ecological Economics by Emerging Scholars," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    6. François Allisson & Antoine Missemer, 2020. "Some Historiographical Tools for the Study of Intellectual Legacies," Post-Print halshs-02931492, HAL.
    7. Goddard, Jessica J. & Kallis, Giorgos & Norgaard, Richard B., 2019. "Keeping multiple antennae up: Coevolutionary foundations for methodological pluralism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Florian Fizaine & Victor Court, 2016. "The energy-economic growth relationship: a new insight from the EROI perspective," Working Papers 1601, Chaire Economie du climat.
    9. Foster, John, 2011. "Energy, aesthetics and knowledge in complex economic systems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 88-100.
    10. Plumecocq, Gaël, 2014. "The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 457-468.
    11. Iana Nesterova, 2024. "Being of deep transformations: A personal journey inspired by Clive L. Spash," Environmental Values, , vol. 33(2), pages 122-138, April.
    12. Lundgren, Jakob, 2022. "Unity through disunity: Strengths, values, and tensions in the disciplinary discourse of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    13. Terrance Quinn, 2023. "An Emergent Transdisciplinary Methodology for Effective Collaboration in Ecological Economics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-22, May.
    14. Fouquet, Roger, 2014. "Long run demand for energy services: income and price elasticities over two hundred years," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Timothy J. Garrett, 2013. "Thermodynamics of long-run economic innovation and growth," Papers 1306.3554, arXiv.org.
    16. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2018. "Dematerialization, Decoupling, and Productivity Change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 204-216.
    17. Agovino, Massimiliano & Bartoletto, Silvana & Garofalo, Antonio, 2019. "Modelling the relationship between energy intensity and GDP for European countries: An historical perspective (1800–2000)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 114-134.
    18. Ulrich Witt, 2011. "Sustainability and the Problem of Consumption," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2011-16, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    19. Kander, Astrid & Stern, David I., 2014. "Economic growth and the transition from traditional to modern energy in Sweden," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 56-65.
    20. Naqvi, Asjad & Stockhammer, Engelbert, 2018. "Directed Technological Change in a Post-Keynesian Ecological Macromodel," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 168-188.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anthropocene; Technosphere; Anthropocentrism; Artefacts; General theory of evolution; Functions; Networks; Agency; Energy and information; Thermodynamics; Maximum power; Categorical imperative;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:149:y:2018:i:c:p:212-225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.