Environmental Planning: an Epistemological Approach

Epistemological approach to environmental planning is focus of this paper. However, the theory of knowledge in environmental problems is scrutinized to address planner’s understanding and modus operandi in the face of those problems. Multiple epistemological levels in environmental planning including episteme, discourse, paradigm, substantive and procedural theory, and praxis have been reviewed. In general, the main idea of this paper is exploration of possibility conditions of problematization of environmental concerns as an field of study with task of epistemologization of environment’s current problems. Considering our society's rapid transformations in cultural aspects as well as natural dimensions, environment's planning should be treated as an interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary) in multiple levels of epistemology and multi-scale of analysis to be helpful for transition to an ecologically- culturally possible state.