IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v153y2018icp195-203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Searching for a Scientific Paradigm in Ecological Economics: The History of Ecological Economic Thought, 1880s–1930s

Author

Listed:
  • Franco, Marco P.V.

Abstract

This paper addresses the history of ecological economic thought (EET) in the period between the 1880s and 1930s, with the aim to contribute to a better understanding of the early history of modern ecological economics, as well as to the current position of the discipline in relation to its values, goals, methods and contents. EET is defined as the ideas concerning the interlinkages between ecology and economics and described through the analysis of the flows and stocks of energy and matter, including their economic implications for the processes of social provisioning and cultural development. The diversity of EET is analyzed in terms of dissimilar positions mainly concerning energy as a determinant of cultural development and the normative aspects involving resource distribution, social ideals and policy-making. Social energetics is identified as a foundation of EET. These definitions are then used to argue for the formation of a scientific metaparadigm, falling short of a full-scale Kuhnian scientific paradigm. In addition, insights are drawn concerning paradigm formation in modern ecological economics and how this paradigm formation is related to the on-going debate among ecological economists on the benefits and limits of the adoption of a broad methodological pluralism.

Suggested Citation

  • Franco, Marco P.V., 2018. "Searching for a Scientific Paradigm in Ecological Economics: The History of Ecological Economic Thought, 1880s–1930s," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 195-203.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:153:y:2018:i:c:p:195-203
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800918303537
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.022?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. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin, 2008. "Relating the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: The role of concepts, models, and case studies in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 384-393, October.
    2. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    3. Norgaard, Richard B., 1989. "The case for methodological pluralism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 37-57, February.
    4. Lydia Illge & Reimund Schwarze, 2006. "A Matter of Opinion: How Ecological and Neoclassical Environmental Economists Think about Sustainability and Economics," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 619, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Sheila C. Dow, 2012. "Variety of Methodological Approach in Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foundations for New Economic Thinking, chapter 13, pages 210-230, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Begüm Özkaynak & Fikret Adaman & Pat Devine, 2012. "The identity of ecological economics: retrospects and prospects," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(5), pages 1123-1142.
    7. Missemer, Antoine, 2012. "William Stanley Jevons' The Coal Question (1865), beyond the rebound effect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 97-103.
    8. John Gowdy & Jon D. Erickson, 2005. "The approach of ecological economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 207-222, March.
    9. Sheila C. Dow, 2012. "Structured Pluralism," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foundations for New Economic Thinking, chapter 10, pages 162-177, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Klaassen, Ger A. J. & Opschoor, Johannes B., 1991. "Economics of sustainability or the sustainability of economics: Different paradigms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 93-115, November.
    11. Agnar Sandmo, 2015. "Editor's Choice The Early History of Environmental Economics," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 9(1), pages 43-63.
    12. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    13. Illge, Lydia & Schwarze, Reimund, 2009. "A matter of opinion--How ecological and neoclassical environmental economists and think about sustainability and economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 594-604, January.
    14. Lo, Alex, 2014. "The Problem of Methodological Pluralism in Ecological Economics," MPRA Paper 49543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Tacconi, Luca, 1998. "Scientific methodology for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 91-105, October.
    16. Costanza, Robert, 1989. "What is ecological economics?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, February.
    17. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39, pages 137-137.
    18. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    19. Gardner M. Brown & V. Kerry Smith & Gordon R. Munro & Richard Bishop, 2016. "Early Pioneers in Natural Resource Economics," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 25-42, October.
    20. Christensen, Paul P., 1989. "Historical roots for ecological economics -- Biophysical versus allocative approaches," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 17-36, February.
    21. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh & Jan van der Straaten (ed.), 1997. "Economy and ecosystems in change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1329.
    22. Herman E. Daly, 1968. "On Economics as a Life Science," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 392-392.
    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. Spash, Clive L., 2020. "A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    2. Franco, Marco P.V., 2020. "Conservation, economic planning and natural capital in early Soviet ecology," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    3. François Allisson & Antoine Missemer, 2020. "Some Historiographical Tools for the Study of Intellectual Legacies," Post-Print halshs-02931492, HAL.

    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. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    2. Spash, Clive L., 2020. "A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Teixeira, Aurora A. C. & Castro e Silva, Manuela, 2015. "Relational environment and intellectual roots of 'ecological economics': An orthodox or heterodox field of research?," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-52, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Strunz, Sebastian & Klauer, Bernd & Ring, Irene & Schiller, Johannes, 2014. "Between Scylla and Charybdis: On the place of economic methods and concepts within ecological economics," UFZ Discussion Papers 26/2014, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    6. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.
    7. Dube, Benjamin, 2021. "Why cross and mix disciplines and methodologies?: Multiple meanings of Interdisciplinarity and pluralism in ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    8. Clive L. Spash, 2019. "Time for a Paradigm Shift: From Economic Growth and Price-Making Markets to Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2019_07, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Lo, Alex, 2014. "The Problem of Methodological Pluralism in Ecological Economics," MPRA Paper 49543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Remig, Moritz C., 2015. "Unraveling the veil of fuzziness: A thick description of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 194-202.
    11. Olivier Petit & Franck-Dominique Vivien, 2015. "When economists and ecologists meet on Ecological Economics: two science paths around two interdisciplinary concepts," Post-Print halshs-01249774, HAL.
    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. 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.
    14. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "Ecological Economics and Philosophy of Science: Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology and Ideology," SRE-Discussion Papers 2012/03, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    15. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    16. Farrell, Katharine N. & Silva-Macher, Jose Carlos, 2017. "Exploring Futures for Amazonia's Sierra del Divisor: An Environmental Valuation Triadics Approach to Analyzing Ecological Economic Decision Choices in the Context of Major Shifts in Boundary Condition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 166-179.
    17. Melgar-Melgar, Rigo E. & Hall, Charles A.S., 2020. "Why ecological economics needs to return to its roots: The biophysical foundation of socio-economic systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    18. Buchs, Arnaud & Petit, Olivier & Roman, Philippe, 2020. "Can social ecological economics of water reinforce the “big tent”?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    19. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ecological economics; Ecological economic thought; Social energetics; Scientific paradigm; Scientific metaparadigm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B10 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - General
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • 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:153:y:2018:i:c:p:195-203. 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.