Between Frankfurt and Vienna:

In this paper we consider the conflicts between two traditions of political ecology. The two traditions might be crudely characterised as physicalist and culturalist. The first is apparent in much of the work in ecological economics in particular, but also in the materialist left and more practically in conservation policy. It is concerned with the physical and biophysical conditions for human and non-human flourishing. It typically employs physical indicators of human well-being and biophysical indicators of environmental change. It is typically concerned with the ways in which current economic and social systems meet physical limits in the capacity of the environment for resource provision, waste assimilation, and climate regulation. It is science based. In the tradition of ecological economics one can trace the influence of an older physicalist tradition found in the work of the left Vienna Circle, and in particular of Otto Neurath. The second tradition is apparent in a body of work that sees the environmental crisis as part of a wider cultural crisis in ‘Western reason’. It is typically more critical of science and scientism as forms of ideology that are taken to underpin the environmental crisis. The reduction of practical reason to modes of instrumental rationality limits the possibility of a critical perspective on our environmental problems. One of the main sources of this body of work is the Frankfurt School.