Birkin and Polesie (2013) introduce epistemic analysis as a tool for further theorizing sustainability economics and the capability approach. Following Foucault's classification of three epistemes — the Renaissance, Classical and Modern — they add a fourth and emerging one,
the Primal episteme. While in their reasoning, ecological economics hints at the emerging episteme, sustainability economics is still rooted in the Modern episteme, since it is an economic (and monodisciplinary) research program. Birkin and Polesie (2013) see potential improvements through epistemic analysis in both sustainability economics and the capability approach: “But if we are to use the capability approach to develop sustainability economics, it is insufficient to focus only upon people. We need also to incorporate the natural world” (p. 151). The emerging episteme, so their argumentation, can connect the natural world and the capability approach. In a more general way, Birkin and Polesie (2013) say that epistemic analysis “may be usefully applied to identifying the epistemological causes of unsustainable
development in the Modern episteme” (Birkin and Polesie, 2013, p. 151).