The problem of representational adequacy, or how to evidence an ecosystem

Lester Embree

pp. 59-70

in: Steven Crowell (ed), The prism of the self, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

Environmental action, i.e., acting for the sake of the environment, requires for its justification both evaluation and cognition with respect to organisms, habitats, and ecosystems: how they evolve, how they work, how they languish, how they change, how they flourish, and how they die. The present investigation is generally confined to cognition. Cognition is believing justified by evidencing. Along one dimension, such justification can be prima facie or critical; along another dimension, justified believing can be in various degrees relative or non-relative; along a third dimension it can be certainly or probably positive or negative; and along a fourth dimension it can be pre-predicative or predicative and, in the latter case, it can also be called knowledge.