STS Circle at Harvard [image.png] Paul Forman Smithsonian Institution (Emeritus) on Politico-legal Proceduralism, Belief in Scientific Method, and the Elevation of Means Over Ends in Modernity Monday, October 15 12:15-2:00 p.m. Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Room 100F [image.png] Lunch is provided if you RSVP. Please RSVP to sts<mailto:[email protected]>@hks.harvard.edu<mailto:[email protected]> by 5pm Today, October 10. Abstract: In this talk I build upon the general consensus among STS scholars that the last 30-35 years have seen a great change in the presuppositions of scientific work. One especially noteworthy, but less emphasized, aspect of that change is the drastic downgrading of the importance attributed to the notion of scientific method. I argue that this particular alteration of our presuppositions is coherent with, and presumably a manifestation of, other, successively wider, cultural changes: loss of confidence in method generally, including a retreat from politico-legal proceduralism, reaching so deeply as seriously to undermine the most general and comprehensive presupposition of modernity, the elevation of means above ends. In this way I aim to persuade that the transformations which we all recognize in knowledge production setting in circa 1980 cannot be the consequence of new governmental policies, or even of new terms of trade and modes of production, but are, much rather, ‘part and parcel’ of the abrupt and profound cultural break that put an end to modernity. Biography: Paul Forman is Curator Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution. For more information, see: http://americanhistory.si.edu/about/staff.cfm?key=12&staffkey=1692 A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/ Follow us on Facebook: STS@Harvard<http://www.facebook.com/HarvardSTS> _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to the Harvard STS Circle mailing list. [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, please click here: http://lists.ksg.harvard.edu/u?id=114309.68a0e2670e977096141663bb022c99c6&o=74041&n=T&c=F&l=harvard-sts
<<inline: image.png>>
_______________________________________________ Sci-tech-public mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sci-tech-public
