Denys Zhadiaiev & Ksenia Yurchenko
The academic area is full of ideas that suggest solutions on how to cope with climate change yet, the world of technology, corporations with big financial turnover, are slow to implement their solutions. Perhaps, the ecological civilization, towards which we aim, has the other side to consider and the solution must be cumulative, not just theoretical or financial.
The implementation of ideas, in our view, could be possible if we take into account that being (and ecological issues cannot have their origin only in particular reality – only in the whole context!) is considered as an aspect of epistemology – theory of knowledge. That is to say, it may not be enough to collect scientific data, conduct experiments and provide scientific evidence so that world of business followed advices from the part of environmentalists. We suggest that possible solutions can have more chances to be implemented if we focus on the other field – the discourse.
Any hard science is rather rational activity than empirical since it cannot avoid scientific discourse (in order to implement its innovations). Thus, in order to overcome any issues, we have to find proper terms which we use in order to make conclusions. And terms have also their conceptual origins, both, in the field of causal efficacy and in the realm of abstractions. That is to say, the world of business is the realm of activity, causal efficacy, immediate interaction andacademic scientific data is an abstraction. That means, that if ecological issues have to be solved by means of scientific knowledge and in the world of action – realm of cause and effect (not purposefulness or causa sui) – we have to find out and develop proper way of arguments that we use in discourse between environmentalists and corporations that pollute environment.
As a model, we suggest that collected scientific data must be converted into comprehensible knowledge for this ‘world of action’ (business, corporations). That is, first, it must appeal to universal publicity, not to particular men in position (since eco-issues, in their turn, cannot affect only part of nature). Second, the abstract data must be presented in the form of aesthetical arguments (visual, audible etc.) that are more comprehensible in the realm where cause and effect are primary and dominant forces.
The nature of environmental problems and the logic of discourse, we believe, request the kind of transition of the concept of truth to beauty on their way to implementation in this world of action, cause and effect, social and professional hierarchy.
However, eco-issues are always relational and thus, to solve them, we must not be limited only by those two concepts around which feeling (aesthetics) and knowledge (science) spin around. The third ‘element’ is good in the triad: truth – beauty – good. But the good is relational and in our model requires the proper conversion of science into aesthetics in the age of big data, globalization, and ephemeral digitalization.