Early practitioners of the social studies of science turned their attention away from questions of institutionalisation, which had tended to emphasize macrolevel explanations, and attended instead to microstudies of laboratory practice. The author is interested in re-investigating certain aspects of institution formation, notably the formation of scientific, medical, and engineering disciplines. He emphasises the manner in which science as cultural practice is imbricated with other forms of social, political, and even aesthetic practices. The author considers the following topics: the organic (...) physics of 1847; the innovative research program of Carl Ludwig as a model for institutionalising science-based medicine, optics, painting, and ideology in Germany, 1845-95; the Haber-Bosch synthesis of ammonia; and the introduction of nuclear magnetic resonance instrumentation into the practice of organic chemistry. (shrink)

Experiment, instrumentation, and procedures of measurement, the body of practices and technologies forming the technical culture of science, have received at most a cameo appearance in most histories. For the history of science is almost always written as the history of theory. Of course, the interpretation of science as dominated by theory was the main pillar of the critique, launched by Kuhn, Quine, Hanson, Feyerabend, and others, of the positivist and logical empiricist traditions in the philosophy of science. Against Carnap, (...) Hempel, Nagel, and Popper, who accorded observation reports an independent status either as a source of inductive support or as a basis for the falsification of scientific theories, Hanson and Kuhn emphasized the theory-ladenness of observation. They made this central point – that all observation is shaped by reference to theory – the cornerstone of a full-blown philosophy of science by buttressing it with two additional lines of argument: First, theories are always underdetermined by the data, several theories being compatible with the same set of data. Hence, choice between theories is never a matter of empirical support, but always turns around conceptual issues. Second, statements derived from theory never confront nature alone; they are always clothed in a web of interrelated beliefs. Thus, theories, their associated observation languages, and the entire technical culture they support must be accepted or rejected as wholes. (shrink)

Focusing on new disciplines in 19th-century German universities, this book reexamines certain critical junctures in the traditional historical picture of the role of the scientist in modern Western society.

Crucial to the establishment of a scientific discipline is a body of knowledge organized around a set of instruments, interpretive techniques, and regimes of training in their application. In this paper, we trace the involvement of scientists and engineers at Varian Associates in the development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers from the first demonstrations of the NMR phenomenon in 1946 to the definitive takeoff of NMR as a chemical discipline by the mid-1960s. We examine the role of Varian scientists in (...) constructing several models of NMR instruments for research scientists in the 1950s and the Varian efforts to influence the adoption of NMR as a standard tool for chemical analysis through Varian-supported publications, participation in scientific meetings, collaborations with academic chemists, workshops, and postdoctoral fellowships. Special attention is devoted to the development of the Varian A-60, the first commercial NMR instrument intended for the broadly trained chemist rather than a custom-built tool for the research specialist. Drawing on an examination of the use-rate of NMR instruments in chemical literature, the assessment of NMR in the chemical review literature by practitioners, and indicators of the establishment of a suitable funding environment for the growth of physics-based scientific instrumentation in the post-Sputnik era, we argue that the establishment of NMR as a discipline coincided with the adoption of the A-60 in the mid-1960s. During the period of our study, Varian Associates was a primary military contractor. This paper is intended to contribute to recent interest in the relation of military fundingto scientific enterprise during the Cold War and to the larger question of university-industry interactions in the growth of knowledge. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the reception of Kant’s philosophy of biology in the context of the so-called ‘Göttingen School’. Timothy Lenoir has tried to rehabilitate the framework elaborated at Göttingen by stressing its difference from Naturphilosophie. Focusing on the work of Karl Friedrich Kielmeyer this paper argues that Lenoir’s position is based on a historiographical bias. I take into account Kielmeyer’s stance on physiology, embryology and natural history. This analysis reveals the existence of a clear shift from (...) a regulative to a constitutive understanding of teleology. I agree with Zammito that the ‘Lenoir thesis’ should be overcome in favor of a more accurate narrative of the emergence of biology in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a kind of mental stage sensitive to the knower's environment. It makes a major contribution to the debate between externalist and internalist philosophies of mind, and breaks radically with the epistemological tradition of analyzing knowledge in terms of true belief. The theory casts new light on such philosophical problems as scepticism, evidence, probability and assertion, realism and anti-realism, and the limits of what can be known. The arguments are (...) illustrated by rigorous models based on epistemic logic and probability theory. The result is a new way of doing epistemology and a notable contribution to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This is not your psychoanalyst's unconscious.

In this paper, we consider recent attempts to metaphysically explain agentive modality in terms of conditionals. We suggest that the best recent accounts face counterexamples, and more worryingly, they take some agentive modality for granted. In particular, the ability to perform basic actions features as a primitive in these theories. While it is perfectly acceptable for a semantics of agentive modal claims to take some modality for granted in getting the extension of action claims correct, a metaphysical explanation of agentive (...) modality cannot, at least not in the way that conditional approaches to agentive modality do. We argue that this problem was present even in the classical conditional analysis. By a pessimistic induction, we suggest that, probably, no conditional approach to agentive modality will succeed. (shrink)

Buddhism was not really known in the West until a little more than 150 years ago. Although since the thirteenth century there had been numerous contacts with local Buddhist traditions, the travellers and missionaries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance had not yet brought to light the history of Buddhism and its unity across this immense diversity of worship and doctrine, disseminated through most of the countries of Asia. Of course, since the seventeenth century some Europeans had guessed at (...) the Indian origin of the Buddha and they succeeded in pinning down his historical existence after a fashion. In 1691 and 1693 Simon de la Loubère, Louis XIV's envoy at the court of the king of Siam, published remarkable research which established the possibility of a link between the different regions of Siam, Ceylon, Japan and China and conjured up the possible existence of a single founder long before Christ. But this far too isolated knowledge had scarcely any impact in Europe. It was only with the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 that orientalism was to enjoy a rapid and decisive expansion. The word ‘Buddhism’ appeared from the 1820s onwards, and with it the first conceptualization of a tree with many branchings. But it was not until the publication, in 1844, of Eugène Burnouf's magisterial Introduction l'histoire du buddhisme indien, that more detailed knowledge became available, thanks to a critical scrutiny of the most varied sources. The works of the French scholar and of other pioneers in Buddhist studies - mainly Alexander Csoma de Koros and Edmond Foucaux on Tibet, Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat and Stanislas Julien on China, Christian Lassen and Spence Hardy on Ceylon - were to give rise to a tremendous craze for Buddhism in Europe. Since then there has been no break in the successive waves disseminating it right up to the present day, when the majority of Western countries appear to be so receptive to the message of the Buddha that for some years the media have been insistently questioning the reasons for this ‘Buddhist wave’. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est le résultat d'un long travail de réflexion sur l'éducation, il pose de manière critique, en s'appuyant sur les théories et les pratiques qui ont irrigué la pédagogie libertaire, la question à la fois fondamentale et d'actualité de l'autogestion et de l'éthique en matière ; d'éducation. Après avoir rappelé quelques principes de base d'une éducation de la liberté par la liberté, l'auteur s'intéresse à l'inutile fracture entre la formation initiale et l'éducation permanente qui n'est à ses yeux qu'une (...) imposture. II développe ensuite un propos, appuyé sur des expériences de terrain, qui tend à démontrer toute l'efficacité des formations coopératives et autogérées. Enfin, il s'attaque à la délicate question de l'éthique et des valeurs nécessaires à la conduite de l'action éducative, en particulier en matière d'évaluation. Un livre qui, sans donner de leçons, donne à penser. (shrink)

Practical and conceptual, the Responsible Research and Innovation set of books contributes to the clarification of this new requirement for all sciences and technological innovation. It covers the multiple and international responsibilities, by using various philosophical resources, mostly discussing the following topics: ethics, contingency, normative economy, freedom, corporate social responsibility (CSR), participative technological evaluation, sustainable development, geoengineering, the precautionary principle, standards, interdisciplinarity, and climate management. The ethics of efficiency must be considered with regard to the logic of action or to (...) economic, political, legal or scientific systems. This book presents a question on the central theme of responsible research and innovation (RRI), which has an ethical influence on effective logics. The issue is to question the opportunity and modularities of an ethical effective influence on the logics of efficiency of research and innovation. From the distinction of efficiency and effectiveness, lies the problem of efficacy, the ethical accord between the two. Thus appears the possibility of taking effective responsibility with respect to systematic injustices potentially linked to this efficiency. This book proposes categories to understand the ethical implications of research and innovation processes, under the aspect of their efficacy. (shrink)

Knepper criticizes existing efforts in the philosophy of religion for being out of step with, and therefore useless to, the academic study of religion, then forwards a new program for philosophy of religion that is in step with, and therefore useful to, the academic study of religion.

Who would have thought twenty-five years ago that the term “bioethics,” a neologism coined by an American biologist, would have met with such success, becoming one of the cornerstones of philosophical and juridical reflection at the end of the twentieth century? For it was in 1970 that the biologist and oncologist Van Rensalear Potter published his book, Bioethics, Science of Survival.

In response to a mandate conferred on the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of UNESCO in November 1993, the IBC has drafted a "universal declaration on the human genome and human rights," which will be considered by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1997. This article discusses the development of the document and provides the text of the "revised preliminary draft" of the declaration.

According to the Fragmentation Analysis, epistemic akrasia is a state of conflict between beliefs formed by the linguistic and non-linguistic belief-formation systems, and epistemic akrasia is irrational because it is a state of conflict between beliefs so formed. I argue that there are cases of higher-order epistemic akrasia, where both beliefs are formed by the linguistic belief-formation system. Because the Fragmentation Analysis cannot accommodate this possibility, the Fragmentation Analysis is incorrect. I consider three objections to the possibility of higher-order epistemic (...) akrasia. Along the way, I offer a revision of the Fragmentation Analysis that can allow for the possibility of higher-order akrasia while avoiding the problems I point out for the original view. (shrink)

In this global introduction to philosophy of religion you begin not with a single tradition, but with religious philosophies from East Asia, South Asia, West Africa, and Native North America, alongside the classical Abrahamic and modern European traditions. Matching this diversity of traditions, chapters are organized around questions that acknowledge there is no single understanding of any god or ultimate reality. Instead you approach six different traditions of philosophizing about religion by asking questions about the journeys of both the self (...) and the cosmos such as "What is my path?" and "Where did the cosmos come from?" Accompanied by introductory materials and an extensive glossary, each chapter includes learning objectives, questions for discussion, and suggested primary and secondary sources. The categories of religion and philosophy are interrogated throughout. Equipped with study tools and universal questions about the self and the cosmos, Philosophies of Religion: A Global and Critical Introduction shows you how to philosophize about religions around the world. (shrink)

Désirer vivre, ce n'est pas simplement être en vie. C'est nous laisser entraîner par l'élan vital qui nous conduit à créer, à aimer, à nous dépasser. C'est cultiver la puissance du désir qui est le moteur de nos existences. Pourtant, au quotidien, nous ressentons de nombreuses limitations - 'Je ne suis pas capable', 'C'est trop risqué', 'Ce n'est pas pour toi' - qui nous inhibent. Nous sommes souvent aussi prisonniers des pulsions de notre cerveau primaire, le striatum, et de la (...) propagande consumériste qui nous poussent à acquérir toujours plus. Comment cultiver la force du désir sans tomber dans le piège de l'insatisfaction permanente ou du mimétisme social? Comment développer notre puissance vitale sans nous autocensurer? Comment apprendre à orienter nos désirs vers des choses, des activités ou des personnes qui nous font grandir et nous mettent dans la joie? De Platon à René Girard en passant par Bouddha, Aristote, Épicure, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Jung ou Bergson, Frédéric Lenoir revisite les grands penseurs du désir pour nous proposer un livre lucide et vibrant, au cœur de nos problématiques les plus actuelles. Un ouvrage accessible à tous, qui aide non seulement à vivre, mais à vivre aux éclats"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)