Methodological pluralism

Abstract

Disciplinary sciences have multiple approaches to understanding and have developed separate and sometimes impenetrable languages to facilitate disciplinary knowledge. The gaps between how social scientists and natural scientist understand and describe the systems they study are especially great. Ecological economists seek a synthesis across ecology and economics that has expanded to include questions of moral obligations to the poor, future generations, and other species. Methodological pluralism addresses fundamental issues of how scientists and the public understand the new reality and moral challenges of adapting, and ultimately transforming, human provisioning systems during the Anthropocene.