Context and requirements to social sciences, to confront environmental problems

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to show how  social sciences emerged, with which characteristics and assumptions, and, therefore, which difficulties they have to understand and to deal with environmental problems. In a second moment, there will be presented some analysis about knowledge and its relationship with the environment, as well as the importance to overcome the division between the so-called hard sciences and the social and human sciences, and the need of contributions of the sciences of complexity, cultural studies, modernity/coloniality studies and environmental thought, both as challenges and possibilities to treat environmental problems in an integral way. These combined approximations represent a great task for the social sciences, but, without them, it will be impossible to deal with the environmental problems in an adequate way.