¿Qué son las ciencias ambientales? Una introducción a sus problemas epistémicos

Abstract

This article aimed to conform an introduction to the epistemic peculiarities of the environmental sciences by systemizing disciplinary postures, paradigms and matrices that they happen to experience. The text is guided by the question “Why a science becomes an environmental science?” We intended to answer this question by Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science and by questioning certain definitions in environmental sciences, in order to construct a definition based in a systemic disciplinary matrix. We started from three definitions of environmental sciences that refer to environmental problems. Then, we appealed to another definition that did not require environmental problems to define environmental sciences. This analysis led us to find two tendencies of comprehension and praxis in environmental sciences that difficult their integration. The problem of the demarcation criterion apparently is only a theorethical problem, but it turned out being a practical problem. According to the appealed disciplinary matrix, certain knowledge or project can be discarded or not as relevant to the environmental sciences, which affects research projects accepted or rejected as environmental sciences in postgraduate courses and journals.