Eric Winsberg, “Philosophy and Climate Science” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
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What is the IPCC’s reported warming trend and why does it matter?
Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figtor, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. And I'm co host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Eric Winsburg, professor of philosophy at the University of South Florida. His new book, Philosophy and Climate Science, is just out from Cambridge University Press. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, reports that there is a warming trend in the global climate that is attributable to human activity, with an expected increase in global temperature given current trends.
Of between one point five and four point five degrees Celsius or two point seven to seven point two degrees Fahrenheit. But how do climate scientists reach these conclusions? In philosophy and climate science, Winsburg presents the elements of climate science in a rigorous but accessible framework that emphasizes their relation to a variety of key debates in the philosophy of science. These include the relation between evidence and theory, the The nature and uses of models and simulations, the types of probability involved in scientific reasoning, the role of values in science, and others. Winsburg Books reads as both an expert primer on how climate scientists try to understand the chaotic and complex system that is the Earth's atmosphere and
And also an illustration of how scientific knowledge is created, debated, and used to inform public policy. Let's turn to the interview. Hello Eric, Winsburg. Are you there?
Yeah, I'm here. Hi Karen.
Hi, welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Thanks.
Um, I'm really looking forward to talking about your book, Philosophy and Climate Science, um, from a very uh a very well-informed philosophy science uh background. Um Uh and there's a number of I i uh one of the things that I really like about the book is the way it uh breaks down the aspects of climate science that, you know, many people, even those who who are you know, who accept the climate science, uh you know, we don't really have a good grasp on how it is produced and what sorts of philosophical issues uh might arise from that. And and this is entirely sort of independent of a lot of the more um uh, you know, political and social issues that you that you don't, you know, really touch on, although it's it's obviously in the background.
Um so before we we get into the the details of the book, maybe you can say a bit about uh yourself and and how you came to philosophy and how you came to write this book.
My background in philosophy, um so I got into philosophy, I suppose probably this is true of most of us. I got into philosophy Mostly by accident.
How did Eric Winsberg’s academic background lead him to climate philosophy?
Um, I went to college expecting to I studied physics. I studied physics for most of my time in college. Uh but by the end decided that wasn't really for me. Um I had luckily taken A number of uh history of science classes and some philosophy of science classes and Uh decided I would go study um history and philosophy of science for graduate school, thinking that that was itself a field. Uh, so I went to grad school at Indiana and uh sort of gradually Ended up uh a philosopher, sort of by accident, I guess. So
Okay, and how did you get into this particular topic?
Oh, uh yeah, so uh I guess in college I had gotten w uh while I was doing physics I'd kinda gotten interested in chaos theory. Uh I had uh there was a young uh assistant professor in Indiana named Steven Kellert that was uh also had written a recently written a book on Philosophy of cast theory and uh That kind of got me interested in computer simulation, which was the topic of my dissertation. Uh and was the main area of my research uh for the first Seven or eight years of my professional career. Uh and then uh just you know, I mean, given the sort of central role that simulation plays in climate science, it was a pretty natural
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the IPCC’s reported warming trend and why does it matter?
0:07–3:22
2
How did Eric Winsberg’s academic background lead him to climate philosophy?
3:22–7:42
3
What’s the difference between climate and weather and why does it matter for predictions?
7:42–12:10
4
How do scientists define and identify external forcings in the climate system?
12:10–19:04
5
What role do climate models and simulations play in projecting future warming?
19:04–29:03
6
How are probability and confidence expressed in climate science (objective vs. subjective)?
29:03–37:16
7
Why are integrated assessment models controversial for climate policy decisions?
37:16–46:50
8
What are the risks of abrupt climate change and why should we consider tail‑risk scenarios?
46:50–1:07:15
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