Humboldtian science Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9480-6 Authors David Oldroyd, School of History and Philosophy, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052 Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

This article investigates why Humboldtian Science, as a heuristic concept, has gained prominence in the historiography of science and requires clarification. It offers an ideal-type model of comparative research and exact measurements across vast spaces, which Susan F. Cannon and others tied to Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Yet, he himself was less “Humboldtian” than this concept suggests. The article proposes to disentangle Humboldtian Science from Humboldt’s science, which constituted a set of individual research (...) practices that defied the ideal of precision. Humboldt’s science was often impromptu, marked by epistemological and personal insecurities, and embedded in the protagonist’s peripatetic way of living and frequently erratic writing style. Historicizing Humboldt’s science undermines the exceptionalism that elevates the Prussian savant above his contemporaries and casts him as a singular figure. This critical reflection encourages biographical approaches to the history of science, balancing heuristic generalizations and attention to individual research styles. (shrink)

The connections between “the Humboldtian tradition” and very important cultural layers of the European anti-Enlightenment movement can provide a powerful alternative to the mainstream in today’s social sciences. This tradition should be seen, though, in its concrete historicity and the political and theoretical blind spots which are part of this tradition ought to be carefully reconsidered. This anthropological tradition can be “unpacked” by bringing it closer to other theoretical trends which try to address modernity’s inconsistencies and lack of unity (...) - in order to deconstruct its national closure and its administrative and state oriented background. One of the geographical, historical and social areas where alternative modernities , and Humboldtian traditions seem to intersect each other is the East European peasantry. (shrink)

This reply to Finn Collin’s critically sympathetic review of my Back to the University’s Future: The Second Coming of Humboldt, addresses some of the tensions involved in realizing “Humboldt 2.0” in today’s higher education environment. Its focus is largely on the academic’s sense of researcher as being one of learner. In other words, the Humboldtian sees research as the necessary complement to teaching, not something radically distinct from it.

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView.

Language and thought are intimately related: philosophers have long debated how a given language may condition the oral and written expression of thought. The language chosen to communicate scientific discoveries may facilitate or impede international access to such knowledge. Vector and message may become intertwined in ways not yet fully understood: comparing and contrasting dictionary definitions of key terms, such as the Humboldtian Weltansicht, may provide useful insights into this process. Semantic prosody, a linguistic phenomenon brought to light by (...) corpus linguistics through the analysis of ever vaster corpora, may have unsuspected and even unconscious impacts on the perception of a message. A case study of data from WebsTerre, a diachronic corpus of geological English, explores a twentieth-century Kuhnian paradigm shift in Earth Science, from continental drift to plate tectonics, to demonstrate how interactions between semantic prosody and translation have the potential to alter the history of science. (shrink)

There have been constant and multiple endeavours to argue for Darwin's both epistemic and practical debt to Romanticism. Almost all of these arguments emphasise Darwin's theoretical and aesthetic associations with Alexander von Humboldt, who, from a prevailing Darwin-centred perspective, is in turn usually oversimplified as an undisputed incarnation of Romanticism. The antagonistic view, however, develops nothing other than another stereotype of Humboldt as an anti-idealistic, pro-French, and even highly Anglophone empiricist naturalist, and accordingly rejects the claim of a romantic Darwin (...) in terms of his Humboldtian inheritance. In this paper, I will first portray a balanced figure of Humboldt in terms of both his critical incorporation of romantic philosophy and the idiosyncratic history of his science. Then, I will thematically compare Darwin with Humboldt and other romantics so as to elucidate Darwin's peculiar appropriation of romantic tenets. Three interrelated romantic themes are examined, along with a discrimination of different senses in which the term romanticism is used: a) the literature-science relation, b) the pursuit of the unity in and through multiplicity, and c) the epistemic role of imagination. On the basis of this triadic dissection, both Humboldt's and Darwin's adherence to and departure from romanticism are reevaluated. (shrink)

By resituating Alexander von Humboldt in the “working world” of mining, this essay offers a case study of the way in which industry has shaped practice and theory in the history of science. While Humboldt’s experience as a miner in Saxony and Prussia provided him a venue in which to study fossilized vegetation, revealing a fundamental link between the migrations of plants and of peoples, industrial concerns about miners’ safety inspired a study of the interplay between plants and people (...) that shaped his later articulation of the verticality of plant distribution. Moreover, the cartographic methods Humboldt employed during his American journey depended as much on drawing practices indebted to mining as they did on patterns of vertical mobility above and below the surface of the earth. These arguments ultimately encourage a departure from “Humboldtian Science,” a term that has veiled an originally Prusso-Saxon science beneath a set of Anglo-American connotations. (shrink)

Throughout the medieval and modern periods, in various sacred and secular guises, the unification of all forms of knowledge under the rubric of ‘science’ has been taken as the prerogative of humanity as a species. However, as our sense of species privilege has been called increasingly into question, so too has the very salience of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’ as general categories, let alone ones that might bear some essential relationship to each other. After showing how the ascendant Stanford (...) School in the philosophy of science has contributed to this joint demystification of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’, I proceed on a more positive note to a conceptual framework for making sense of science as the art of being human. My understanding of ‘science’ is indebted to the red thread that runs from Christian theology through the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment to the Humboldtian revival of the university as the site for the synthesis of knowledge as the culmination of self-development. Especially salient to this idea is science‘s epistemic capacity to manage modality (i.e. to determine the conditions under which possibilities can be actualised) and its political capacity to organize humanity into projects of universal concern. However, the challenge facing such an ideal in the twentyfirst century is that the predicate ‘human’ may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by what I call ‘ecological’, ‘biomedical’ and ‘cybernetic’ interests. Which one of these future humanities would claim today’s humans as proper ancestors and could these futures co-habit the same world thus become two important questions that general philosophy of science will need to address in the coming years. (shrink)

The insight that scientific theories are “practice-laden” has animated scholarship in the history of science for nearly three decades. This article examines a style of geographical thought that was, I argue, movement-laden. The thought-style in question has been described as a “vertical consciousness that engulfed science in the early nineteenth century,” and is closely associated with the geographical vision of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Humboldt’s science spanned nature’s horizontal and vertical axes, from Saxon mines to Andean summits, (...) and from the currents of the ocean to those of the aerial ocean. In probing the origins of Humboldt’s vertical thinking, this article opens up a broader history about the industrial practices and travel cultures that originally animated it. Humboldt’s “global physics” first emerged within a context of vertical travel, up mountains and into mines and caverns. Rhythms of the body—lethal for some, “sublime” for others—became rhythms of the mind. A view of nature as set of vertically complementary spaces rippled through mining culture, Romantic art, and the geographical sciences. To trace the earliest routes of Humboldt’s science is to acknowledge the many actors—some celebrated, most unsung—who took part in the making of a vertical consciousness. (shrink)

Sir Roderick Murchison's Humboldtian belief in a close linkage between the sciences of geology and physical geography finds its best illustration in his prediction of the three-dimensional structure of Africa in 1852 from explorers' reports, fossil discoveries, and a theory of crustal uplift and fracturing elaborated by the Cambridge mathematician William Hopkins. From this remarkably accurate hypothesis and other theories which he had developed concerning the occurrence of coal and gold, Murchison concluded that exploitable deposits of economic minerals which (...) might justify the foundation of a series of new British colonies could be systematically discovered around the continent's elevated rim. As the simultaneous President of the Royal Geographical Society and Director-General of the British Geological Survey, Murchison subsequently organized the dispatch of numerous scientific exploring expeditions to test his theory and reconnoitre commercial opportunities in Africa. While widening the frontier of British science, he thus schooled the imperial government in the belief that science could serve the drive for national expansion. His views on the physical, biological, and cultural conservatism of Africa also provided scientific justification for Victorian schemes of improvement, and his promotional activities helped set the stage for the British annexations in the continent during its fin de siècle partition by the European powers. (shrink)

The role of verticality in 19th- and 20th-century fields of knowledge-making has received increased attention among historians of science. Correspondingly, cultural historians have explored the growing importance of a bird's eye view in popular culture throughout the 1800s. The elevated positions created in science and public discourse have both contributed to a modern ability to see the bigger picture. This article investigates how the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin produced an elevated view through his expedition to the Karakoram mountain (...) range in Tibet between 1906 and 1908. Focusing on his travel narrative as a place where the elevated view was created and defined, I interpret Hedin's expedition as a part of initiatives in geography, at the turn of the 20th century, to find a vertical means of representing the world. In particular, this article demonstrates how the overview, both literally and metaphorically, became an ideal in Hedin's narrative. Moreover, I argue that Hedin's elevated view contributed to an emotional economy of elevation. The alleged rational gaze of the overview was combined with emotions and experiences of cold climate, thin mountain air, vertigo, and awe. This article indicates how affective states were included in the collection of data, even when they threatened to blur the sensorium of the observer. Third, through the analytical lens of an emotional economy of elevation, I argue that Hedin's elevated view mimicked the affective language of a Humboldtian tradition, while at the same time it contributed to the popular culture of the late 19th century with its fascination for ascents and bird's-eye views. As a European celebrity, Hedin reached massive crowds and contributed to the establishment of the outlook from above as a crucial technique for understanding nature. (shrink)

Historians of science have attributed the emergence of ecology as a discipline in the late nineteenth century to the synthesis of Humboldtian botanical geography and Darwinian evolution. In this essay, I begin to explore another, largely neglected but very important dimension of this history. Using Sergei Vinogradskii’s career and scientific research trajectory as a point of entry, I illustrate the manner in which microbiologists, chemists, botanists, and plant physiologists inscribed the concept of a “cycle of life” into their (...) investigations. Their research transformed a longstanding notion into the fundamental approaches and concepts that underlay the new ecological disciplines that emerged in the 1920s. Pasteur thus joins Humboldt as a foundational figure in ecological thinking, and the broader picture that emerges of the history of ecology explains some otherwise puzzling features of that discipline – such as its fusion of experimental and natural historical methodologies. Vinogradskii’s personal “cycle of life” is also interesting as an example of the interplay between Russian and Western European scientific networks and intellectual traditions. Trained in Russia to investigate nature as a super-organism comprised of circulating energy, matter, and life; over the course of five decades – in contact with scientists and scientific discourses in France, Germany, and Switzerland – he developed a series of research methods that translated the concept of a “cycle of life” into an ecologically conceived soil science and microbiology in the 1920s and 1930s. These methods, bolstered by his authority as a founding father of microbiology, captured the attention of an international network of scientists. Vinogradskii’s conceptualization of the “cycle of life” as chemosynthesis, autotrophy, and global nutrient cycles attracted the attention of ecosystem ecologists; and his methods appealed to practitioners at agricultural experiment stations and microbiological institutes in the United States, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union. (shrink)

In the course of the nineteenth century the study of literature was professionalized. There was a concerted attempt to make the study of literature an academic pursuit, ‘a particular branch of learning or science’, to turn it into ‘literary studies’ or, as it was called in German, Literaturwissenschaft. 1 This attempt was ultimately successful in the sense that literary studies became a recognized and established discipline within the new Humboldtian kind of university. However, this success brought troubles of (...) its own. Among other things, the arrival of the academic discipline of literary studies not only required a method of study but also a determinate field of study. In order to delimit such a field, a clear and well-defined concept of literature was needed. This meant that academic literary studies would have to transform, for its own specific purposes, such concepts as ‘literary work’ and ‘literary text’ as well as the concept of ‘literature’, from broad, vague, non-theoretical, everyday notions into something like well-designed theoretical tools. Though it has not always been recognized, this transformation has presented a major theoretical problem for literary studies, and it is arguable that to this day no satisfactory solution has been found. (shrink)

By now scholars agree that the foundation of the University of Berlin in 1810 and its glorification through the “Humboldtian myth” must be viewed separately. Nevertheless, ever since the 1910 centennial, historiography has rarely gone beyond references to the historical documents edited by Rudolf Köpke and Max Lenz. Analyzing the lectures announced in the university calendar for the fall semester 1810/11, the essay shows that applied science and vocational training played a larger role than assumed. In founding the (...) university, it seems, the authorities looked rather for the advancement of the common public interest than for the realization of a “Bildungsideal”. This essay pleads, therefore, for a comprehensive reassessment of the historical documents from the planning and founding stages of the University of Berlin. (shrink)

German educators have long been concerned with the didactics of scientific education. Shortly after the Humboldtian reforms of the early nineteenth century, university science professors realized that they had to rely on teachers in the Gymnasien for well-prepared students. By mid-century, these teachers responded with treatises on the pedagogy of scientific education, treatises whose ideas, when implemented, guaranteed scientifically literate students who would later lead Germany to her first place position in the scientific world by 1900. Now, in (...) the twentieth century, two special conditions have changed the sense in which students could and should be scientifically literate. Logical positivism and its heirs inaugurated rigidly exact methodologies for questioning the foundation and content of science, while technological advances, specifically atomic and nuclear weaponry, raised anew the question of the role of science in modern culture, politics, and society. In recent years German citizens have had a special interest in the latter. (shrink)

This article aims to distinguish and depict the features of communications and collaborations in contemporary universities through the concept of trading zones. The author also considers the role that the idea of a digital university might play in shaping interactions in transforming local context where different actors can find a common ground of exchange. The new contexts, including the pragmatic orientation of contemporary society and new technologies and environments, contribute to reconsidering the idea of the classical university, in which interactions (...) between professors and students have outstepped customary collaborations in laboratories, as well as the idea of education and research integration. This article focuses on distinguishing new forms of interactions, boundary practices, and environments, which are suggested by today’s universities. Proceeding from them, the author argues that new concepts of the university, such as the digital university, and renovated campuses—to some extent—contribute to the adaptation of a renewed idea of Humboldt’s Bildung. (shrink)

This text addresses the problems of complex systems in understanding natural phenomena and the behaviour of systems related to human activity, from a science and humanities perspective. It discusses molecular behaviour and structures, and offers examples of ecological and environmental modelling.

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

THE VALUE OF SCIENCE INTRODUCTION The search for truth should be the goal of our activities; it is the sole end worthy of them. Doubtless we should first bend our efforts to assuage human suffering, but why ? Not to suffer is a negative ...

Summarizing this century's major debates over realism and the rationality of scientific knowledge, Joseph Rouse believes that these disputes oversimplify the ...

Shows that many of our understandings about scientific thought can be corrected once we realise just how unnatural science is. Quoting scientists from Aristotle to Einstein, the book argues that scientific ideas are, with rare exceptions, counter-intuitive and contrary to common sense.

What are the features of a good scientific theory? Samuel Schindler's book revisits this classical question in the philosophy of science and develops new answers to it. Theoretical virtues matter not only for choosing theories 'to work with', but also for what we are justified in believing: only if the theories we possess are good ones can we be confident that our theories' claims about nature are actually correct. Recent debates have focussed rather narrowly on a theory's capacity to (...) predict new phenomena successfully, but Schindler argues that the justification for this focus is thin. He discusses several other theory properties such as testability, accuracy, and consistency, and highlights the importance of simplicity and coherence. Using detailed historical case studies and careful philosophical analysis, Schindler challenges the received view of theoretical virtues and advances arguments for the view that science uncovers reality through theory. (shrink)

Philosophy of biology has a long and honourable history. Indeed, like most of the great intellectual achievements of the Western World, it goes back to the Greeks. However, until recently in this century, it was sadly neglected. With a few noteworthy exceptions, someone wishing to delve into the subject had to choose between extremes of insipid vitalism on the one hand, and sterile formalizations of the most elementary biological principles on the other. Whilst philosophy of physics pushed confidently ahead, the (...) philosophy of biology languished. In the past decade, however, things have changed dramatically. A number of energetic and thoughtful young philosophers have made real efforts to master the outlines and details of contemporary biology. They have shown that many stimulating problems emerge when analytic skills are turned towards the life-sciences, particularly if one does not feeI con strained to stay only with theoretical parts of biology, but can range over to more medical parts of the spectrum. At the same time, biology itself has had one of the most fruitful yet turbulent periods in its whole history, and more and more biologists have grown to see that many of the problems they face take them beyond the narrow confines of empiric al science: a broader perspective is needed. (shrink)

(1994). Annex: The survey questionnaires. World Futures: Vol. 39, The Evolution of European Identity: Surveys of the Growing Edge A Report by the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 161-164.

Of all the problems facing science none are more challenging yet fascinating than those posed by consciousness. In The Science of Consciousness leading researchers examine how consciousness is being investigated in the key areas of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and clinical psychology. Within cognitive psychology, special focus is given to the function of consciousness, and to the relation of conscious processing to nonconscious processing in perception, learning, memory and information dissemination. Neuropsychology includes examination of the neural conditions for consciousness (...) and the effects of brain damage. Finally, mind/body interactions in clinical and experimental settings are considered, including the somatic effects of imagery, biofeedback and placebo effects. Every chapter is written by an expert in the field. They each provide a clear overview of existing research along with an exciting new synthesis of consciousness studies. The The Science of Consciousness will be invaluable for students, researchers and clinicians interested in the developments and directions of this rapidly growing field. (shrink)

On the nature of mathematical reasoning -- Mathematical magnitude and experience -- Non-Euclidian geometries -- Space and geometry -- Experience and geometry -- Classical mechanics -- Relative and absolute motion -- Energy and thermodynamics -- Hypotheses in physics -- Theories of modern physics -- Probability calculus -- Optics and electricity -- Electrodynamics -- The end of matter.

_Brute Science_ investigates whether biomedical research using animals is, in fact, scientifically justified. Hugh LaFollette and Niall Shanks examine the issues in scientific terms using the models that scientists themselves use. They argue that we need to reassess our use of animals and, indeed, rethink the standard positions in the debate.

An argument for the inclusion of the human perspective within science and how it makes science possible.

The field of science communication is plagued by challenges. Communicators face the difficulty of responding to unjustified public skepticism over issues like climate change and COVID-19 while also acknowledging the fallibility and limitations of scientific knowledge. Our goal in this paper is to suggest a new model for science communication that can help foster more productive, respectful relationships among all those involved in science communication. Inspired by the pragmatist philosophy of John Dewey, we develop an experience model, (...) according to which science communication consists in people’s experiences with science and the meanings they develop from those experiences. Three principles are central to the model: experience is cumulative, context matters, and audiences have agency. We argue that this model has significant implications both for communication research and practice, which we illustrate by applying it to the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy. We show how science communicators can help to identify and alleviate structural factors that contribute to skepticism as well as fostering opportunities for meaning making around shared experiences. (shrink)

For twenty years, the renowned philosopher of science Sandra Harding has argued that science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist critique must inform one another. In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader, Harding puts those fields in critical conversation, assembling the anthology that she has long wanted for classroom use. In classic and recent essays, international scholars from a range of disciplines think through a broad array of science and technology philosophies and practices. The (...) contributors reevaluate conventional accounts of the West’s scientific and technological projects in the past and present, rethink the strengths and limitations of non-Western societies’ knowledge traditions, and assess the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. The collection concludes with forward-looking essays, which explore strategies for cultivating new visions of a multicultural, democratic world of sciences and for turning those visions into realities. Feminist science and technology concerns run throughout the reader and are the focus of several essays. Harding provides helpful background for each essay in her introductions to the reader’s four sections. Contributors Helen Appleton Karen Bäckstrand Lucille H. Brockway Stephen B. Brush Judith Carney Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment Arturo Escobar Maria E. Fernandez Ward H. Goodenough Susantha Goonatilake Sandra Harding Steven J. Harris Betsy Hartmann Cori Hayden Catherine L. M. Hill John M. Hobson Peter Mühlhäusler Catherine A. Odora Hoppers Consuelo Quiroz Jenny Reardon Ella Reitsma Ziauddin Sardar Daniel Sarewitz Londa Schiebinger Catherine V. Scott Colin Scott Mary Terrall D. Michael Warren. (shrink)

"La Valeur de la Science" de Henri Poincaré. Mathématicien, physicien et philosophe français (1854-1912).

The rise of cognitive neuroscience is the most important scientific and intellectual development of the last thirty years. Findings pour forth, and major initiatives for brain research continue. The social sciences have responded to this development slowly--for good reasons. The implications of particular controversial findings, such as the discovery of mirror neurons, have been ambiguous, controversial within neuroscience itself, and difficult to integrate with conventional social science. Yet many of these findings, such as those of experimental neuro-economics, pose very (...) direct challenges to standard social science. At the same time, however, the known facts of social science, for example about linguistic and moral diversity, pose a significant challenge to standard neuroscience approaches, which tend to focus on "universal" aspects of human and animal cognition. A serious encounter between cognitive neuroscience and social science is likely to be challenging, and transformative, for both parties. Although a literature has developed on proposals to integrate neuroscience and social science, these proposals go in divergent directions. None of them has a developed conception of social life. This book surveys these issues, introduces the basic alternative conceptions both of the mental world and the social world, and show how, with sufficient modification, they can be fit together in plausible ways. The book is not a "new theory " of anything, but rather an exploration of the critical issues that relate to the social aspects of cognition which expands the topic from the social neuroscience of immediate interpersonal interaction to the whole range of places where social variation interacts with the cognitive. The focus is on the conceptual problems produced by any attempt to take these issues seriously, and also on the new resources and considerations relevant to doing so. But it is also on the need for a revision of social theoretical concepts in order to utilize these resources. The book points to some conclusions, especially about how the process of what was known as socialization needs to be understood in cognitive science friendly terms. But there is no attempt to resolve the underlying issues within cognitive science, which will doubtless persist. (shrink)

Proceedings of the First Conference of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science.

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Douze études portant sur divers points cruciaux d'interprétation de la science et de la métaphysique cartésiennes et leibniziennes. « Copyright Electre » Pages de début Préface Sigles utilisés pour les références aux sources principales I - (...) L'ingenium selon Descartes et le chiffre universel des Règles pour la direction de l'esprit II - La géométrisation du regard. Réflexions sur la Dioptrique de Descartes III - La « Fable du Monde » et la signification métaphysique de la science cartésienne IV - L'origine de la négation V - Leibniz et l'universel VI - De l'individuation à l'individualité universelle VII - Mécanisme et métaphysique : le rétablissement des formes substantielles (1679) VIII - De la puissance à l'action : la singularité stylistique de la dynamique IX - La notion de système dans la physique de Leibniz X - « Pour la beauté et pour l'harmonie » : le meilleur de la dynamique XI - Les axiomes de l'identité et la démonstration des formules arithmétiques : "2 + 2 = 4" XII - Leibniz et l'exigence de démonstration des axiomes : "La partie est plus petite que le Tout" XIII - Ernst Cassirer et les commencements de la science classiqueIndications bibliographiques Index nominum Pages de fin. (shrink)

This acclaimed book is back in print with a new introduction by its award-winning author.

The purpose of this book is to give a coherent account of the different perspectives on science and technology that are normally studied under various disciplinary heads such as philosophy of science, sociology of science and science policy. It is intended for students embarking on courses in these subjects and assumes no special knowledge of any science. It is written in a direct and simple style, and technical language is introduced very sparingly. As various perspectives (...) are sketched out in this book, the reader moves towards a consistent conception of contemporary science as a rapidly changing social institution that has already grown out of its traditional forms and plays a central role in society at large. It will appeal to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines and complement well Professor Ziman's earlier books. (shrink)

In this much-anticipated revision and translation of Scienza e Retorica, Marcello Pera argues that rhetoric is central to the making of scientific knowledge. Pera begins with an attack of what he calls the "Cartesian syndrome"--the fixation on method common to both defenders of traditional philosophy of science and its detractors. He argues that in assuming the primacy of methodological rules, both sides get it wrong. Scientific knowledge is neither the simple mirror of nature nor a cultural construct imposed by (...) contingent interests, thus we must replace the idea of the scientific method with that of scientific rhetoric. Pera proposes a new dialectics of science to overcome the tension between normative and descriptive philosophies of science by focusing on the rhetoric in the proposition, defense, and argumentation of theories. Examining the uses of rhetoric in debates drawn from Galileo’s Dialogues, Darwin’s Origins, and the Big Bang-Steady State controversy in cosmology, Pera shows how the conduct of science involves not just nature and the inquiring mind, but nature, the inquiring mind, and a questioning community which, through the process of attack, defense, and dispute, determines what is science. Rhetoric, then, is an essential element in the constitution of science as the practice of persuasive argumentation through which results gain acceptance. (shrink)

Can science tell us everything there is to know about reality? The intellectual and practical successes of science have led some scientists to think that there are no real limits to the competence of science, and no limits to what can be achieved in the name of science. Accordingly, science has no boundaries; it will eventually answer all our problems. This view (and similar views) have been called Scientism. In this important book scientists' views about (...) science and its relationship to knowledge, ethics and religion are subjected to critical scrutiny. A number of distinguished natural scientists have advocated Scientism in one form or another - Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and Edward O. Wilson - and their impressive impact both inside and outside the sciences is considered. Clarifying what Scientism is, this book proceeds to evaluate its key claims, expounded in questions such as: Is it the case that science can tell us everything there is to know about reality? Can science tell us how we morally ought to live and what the meaning of life is? Can science in fact be our new religion? Ought we to become "science believers"? Stenmark addresses these and similar issues, concluding that Scientism is not really science but disguised materialism or naturalism; its advocates fail to see this, not being sufficiently aware that their arguments presuppose the previous acceptance of certain extra-scientific or philosophical beliefs. (shrink)

Cognitive Models of Science resulted from a workshop on the implications of the cognitive sciences for the philosophy of science held in October 1989 under the ...