Ecological economics and systems theory have a long-standing history. As a foregrounding metatheoretical framework, systems thinking deepens socio-ecological acuity through comprehensive models of complex relationships between social and biophysical systems. However, critical and soft systems are often overlooked, necessitating a framework for “critical pluralism,” similar to that used by systems theorists themselves. To do this, we argue that ecological economics needs to include paradigm analysis as an integral part of the ecological economic discourse to situate work within sociological paradigms – not just biophysical limits to growth. To help establish a critical pluralism approach, we trained a group of emerging ecological economics scholars to integrate systems thinking more firmly in research approaches. We integrate soft systems methodology and critical systems heuristics to establish foundations for critical soft systems methodology. We then trained emerging scholars on this new methodology. Emergent from the results of this training is a new paradigm of thought, centred on regenerative features, for the future of ecological economics – which is best navigated with critical pluralistic approaches. The results of this training also present lessons for the discipline of ecological economics that help chart out the discipline's tensions.

生态经济学和系统理论有着悠久的历史。作为前景的元理论框架，系统思维通过社会和生物物理系统之间复杂关系的综合模型加深了社会生态敏锐度。然而，批判性和软性系统往往被忽视，因此需要一个类似于系统理论家自己使用的“批判多元主义”框架。为此，我们认为生态经济学需要将范式分析作为生态经济学话语的一个组成部分，以将工作置于社会学范式中——而不仅仅是增长的生物物理限制。为了帮助建立批判性多元主义方法，我们培训了一批新兴生态经济学学者，将系统思维更牢固地融入研究方法中。我们将软系统方法论和关键系统启发式方法相结合，为关键软系统方法论奠定基础。然后，我们就这种新方法对新兴学者进行了培训。从这次培训的结果中出现了一种新的思想范式，以再生特征为中心，用于生态经济学的未来——最好用批判性的多元化方法来引导。本次培训的结果还为生态经济学学科提供了经验教训，有助于阐明学科之间的紧张关系。为了生态经济学的未来——最好用批判性的多元方法来驾驭。本次培训的结果还为生态经济学学科提供了经验教训，有助于阐明学科之间的紧张关系。为了生态经济学的未来——最好用批判性的多元方法来驾驭。本次培训的结果还为生态经济学学科提供了经验教训，有助于阐明学科之间的紧张关系。