The Social Epistemology of Engineered Agricultural Ecologies

Catherine Kendig is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University and Affiliated Faculty in the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Exeter, ESRC Center for Genomics in Society/ Department of Sociology and Philosophy; MSc in Philosophy and History of Science from King’s College London; and MA in Philosophy, Social Policy, and Ethics from American University. Before joining Michigan State University, she held posts in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London, and the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Missouri Western State University. Her research investigates the ontological, epistemological, and normative commitments underlying scientific, local, and ethnobiological classifications. Kendig’s research in philosophy of agriculture, philosophy and history of biology, and philosophy of synthetic biology is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, “Social Implications of Emerging Technologies in Agriculture” (Grant #2020-67023-31635), and the National Science Foundation, “Epistemic and Ethical Functions of Categories in the Agricultural Sciences” (Grant #2240749).

Professor Paul B. Thompson was the inaugural occupant of the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University from 2003 to 2022. He now serves as emeritus faculty in the departments of Philosophy, Community Sustainability and Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and has held posts at Texas A & M University and Purdue University. Thompson’s research and teaching has focused on ethical and philosophical topics in food and agriculture. He is the author or co-author of over two hundred articles in refereed journals or scholarly books. His book From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. It won the “Book of the Year” award for 2015 from the North American Society for Social Philosophy. His book The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics was released in a revised and updated second edition in 2017.