Emma Molin

Doktorand, systematisk teologi

My dissertation project seeks to critically analyze a notion that largely characterizes western moral thinking on climate change. Namely, the notion that climate change is the aggregated result of disparate individual acts of releasing small quantities of fossil emissions into the atmosphere, each which, individually, makes no significant difference for the quality of the climate. More specifically, I seek to turn to Hegel’s treatment of the sorites paradox, as well as his treatment of Zeno’s paradox as expressions of Verstand, and to probe how his critique of this moment in consciousness challenges the understanding of climate change in terms of a soritical problem. As such, the project aims to both contribute to the ongoing critique of the current dominant moral discourse on climate change by way of directing attention towards its metaphysical aspects, and to contribute to scholarly work on Hegel by situating the passage on the sorites paradox in the Science of Logic to its wider objective to chart the movement of thought and logic.

Areas of interest: critical theory, Hegel, metaphysics, ethics.