Abstract
This chapter begins with a resumé of the argument of the book. It then discusses three global problems we must solve if we are to have any hope of a decent future: the climate crisis, the nature crisis—the crisis, that is, of the degradation or destruction of natural habitats, such as tropical rain forests, the catastrophic loss of wild life, and the impending mass extinction of species—and third, the menace posed by nuclear weapons ready for launching at the touch of a button. The extent to which the philosophical, scientific, academic and educational revolution that has been argued for in this book would, if it were to occur, help solve these urgent global problems, is considered.
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Notes
- 1.
To be fair, it was not quite as bad as I have suggested. Philosophers who came after Descartes can be regarded as taking for granted, initially at least, not Cartesian dualism, but a broader, less precise doctrine that in Chap. 3 I called post-Cartesianism. This doctrine holds that what we really know about in perception are our inner experiences, any knowledge we may have of things external to us being derived from our knowledge of our inner experiences.
- 2.
Science was called natural philosophy in those days. I would like to preserve the term “natural philosophy” for what might be called authentic natural philosophy—that enterprise pursued by Kepler, Galileo and others that upheld, as a conjecture, that natural phenomena are governed by mathematically precise physical laws, so that a theory, in order to be accepted, would need to meet two conditions. It would have to be compatible with both the metaphysical conjecture and the evidence.
- 3.
- 4.
Einstein (1973, p. 8).
- 5.
Elsewhere, I have argued that free will can exist, and does exist in a physicalistic universe. It emerges from evolution. See Maxwell (2001, ch. 6; 2019b, pp. 67–77; 2020, ch. 5). In Maxwell (2007a, pp. 294–5) I put forward what is, I claim, a proof of the following thesis: if physicalism is true, we do definitely have free will. Physicalism, far from abolishing free will, actually implies that it exists—for it requires free will to achieve the astonishing success that we must concede physics has met with, in those circumstances.
- 6.
See https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-amateur-scientist-who-discovered-climate-change/ (accessed 21/11/2020).
- 7.
For an excellent history of the discovery of climate change, see Weart (2008).
- 8.
Some of these processes have begun to happen as I write in 2022.
- 9.
Cop27 stands for the “27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”.
- 10.
The UN Environmental Programme Emissions Gap Report 2022 says “that the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place. Only an urgent system-wide transformation can avoid climate disaster.” See https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022 (accessed 5 January 2023).
- 11.
Nauru, a small island nation in the Central Pacific Ocean, is the world’s smallest producer of greenhouse gases, producing 0.05 metric tons in 2014. Next comes Kiribati, also in the Central Pacific Ocean, with emissions of 0.08 metric tons in 2014. Next come Niue and The Cook Islands, both in the Central Pacific Ocean, and next Sao Tome and Principe, an island in Gulf of Guinea, all with slightly ascending emissions. Some of these Islands, as punishment for doing so little to intensify the climate crisis, are predicted to disappear beneath the waves because of rising sea levels caused by climate change. Kiribati in particular will suffer this fate. See Wikipedia entries on these island nations.
- 12.
Some experts argue that the two problems are really one problem. They are both environmental problems, true, but they are distinct problems nevertheless. One concerns the change in the climate, the other the destruction of wild life and natural habitats. The two problems do, it is true, interact with one another, and in considering a potential contributory solution to one problem, its impact on the other problem needs to be considered too.
- 13.
- 14.
For information concerning this incident, and others I go on to relate, I am grateful to Wikipedia; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#5_November_1956 (accessed 10 January 2023).
- 15.
For details and further references, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#5_November_1956 (accessed 10 January 2023).
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Maxwell, N. (2024). What We Need to Do. In: The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49491-8_6
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