Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe, PhD, Independent scholar
Hi! My area of expertise is philosophy of science and ethics, with a practice relation to interdisciplinary and participatory research in the field of sustainable food production.
In philosophy of science I place myself in the pragmatist tradition from Charles S. Peirce. I work with a perspectivist framework in line with Ronald Giere’s scientific perspectivism, but with a cross-disciplinary focus. Important theoretical fields in my work are semiotics, biosemiotics, and social systems theory.
In ethics I am inspired by systemic approaches in environmental ethics and Hans Jonas’ ethics of responsibility. I focus on the ethics of knowledge and science as well as on ethics in relation to societal, technological and ecological systems, including recent systemic ethical concepts such as sustainability, precaution and ecological justice.
I have a background in agricultural science and a PhD in philosophy of science from 2001 that focuses on systemic research methodology and ethics. In 2002 I founded the international online Organic Eprints research archive, which now contains more than 20.000 research papers. In 2004-2005 I served as expert member of the global task force on rewriting the principles of organic agriculture. 2008-2014 I developed and taught the course in Philosophy of agricultural science at Aarhus University. 2011-2014 I was project leader of the Danish interdisciplinary and participatory research project MultiTrust (www.multitrust.org), and Work Package leader in the crossdisciplinary EU research project HealthyGrowth (www.healthygrowth.eu).
In 2011-2014 I was associate professor in philosophy of science and ethics at the Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University. Earlier, from 1998 to 2010, I was employed at the International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS) as researcher and senior researcher. 2015-2016 I was scientific officer at ICROFS, University of Aarhus Foulum, and 2017-2021 I was freelance consultant for ICROFS on the development of the Organic Eprints research archive.
In 2011 and again in 2016 I was visiting academic at the Centre for sustainability (CSAFE) at University of Otago, New Zealand, and scientific consultant at the New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard project. 2018-2019 I worked as scientific consultant for the Agriculture Food and Environment Program at Tufts University on the development of a sustainable diets framework. Concurrently, I completed a bachelor in Comparative Literature and Japanese at Aarhus University.
- Publications (Comprehensive list with papers for download)
- Curriculum Vitae (4 page PDF file)
- Teaching Portfolio (70 page PDF file: 5 page intro + examples and documentation )
Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe, Ph.D.
Sciper consulting, research and writing
Hærupvej 14, Hærup, 9500 Hobro, Denmark
Email: hugo.f.alroe \at/ gmail.com
Web: hugo.alroe.dk
Google Scholar page
LinkedIn page