We would like to invite you to a lunch-seminar with Teemu Lari, who is a visiting researcher at Stockholm University in the Department of Philosophy on a project titled "Diagnosing scientific disagreement on sustainability and economic growth" Title: Why are disagreements around green growth so persistent? A text-based approach   Speaker: Teemu Lari, Stockholm University   Abstract: Surveys show that researchers in different fields have strikingly different views on whether environmentally sustainable economic growth (“green growth”) is possible, or a reasonable policy goal given the seriousness and urgency of contemporary environmental problems. On average, economists are much more favorable to the idea of green growth than scholars in the social sciences are. Those pessimistic about the prospects of green growth have envisioned alternative policy agendas and visions, such as those of post-growth and degrowth.   The persistence of disagreements on green growth and its alternatives calls for an explanation. By understanding the factors that perpetuate the disagreements and make them hard to resolve, it may be easier to find ways to build consensus on the policies, perspectives, and ways of thinking needed for a successful sustainability transition.   Previous research has suggested several explanations for the disagreements, such as differing ideological or ontological commitments. In my presentation, I explore how perspectives from the philosophy of science may provide a novel perspective on the issue. In contrast to the mostly quantitative studies that survey a wide range of scholarly opinions and ideas, I conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of one central text on both sides of the green growth / degrowth divide. The texts are Nicholas Stern’s The Growth Story of the 21st Century: The Economics and Opportunity of Climate Action (2025) and Matthias Schmelzer et al.’s The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism (2022).   The analysis reveals some unsurprising results, such as differences in ontological starting points and value commitments. More interesting is that in the analyzed texts, the authors, in their own ways, engage in similar unconstructive argumentative practices, which I label 1) terminological ambiguity, 2) uncharitable conditionalizing, and 3) selective standards of evidence.   While the results are very preliminary and offer no basis for quantitative conclusions, they provide new insights into the disagreements around green growth. They also raise more general social-epistemological questions about the forms of collaboration and critical interaction that may be necessary for pushing the green growth debates in a more constructive direction.   About the speaker: Dr. Teemu Lari a philosopher of science with an interest in economics, the relationship between science and society, and scientific disagreements. He obtained a doctorate in Practical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 2024, after which he worked at Leibniz University Hannover and the University of Helsinki. Dr. Lari currently works as a visiting researcher at Stockholm University. His project, “Diagnosing scientific disagreement on sustainability and economic growth” is funded by a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.   Personal website: https://teemulari.com/

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Wilhelm Wanecek

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