Worlds within Worlds: Kabbalah and the New Scientific Paradigm

Beginning with relativity and quantum theory, the deterministic view that has dominated and shaped Western culture for more than 2,500 years has begun to unravel, leading to the emergence of a new paradigm. This new paradigm effectively reformulates the project of science, conceiving of existence as an interpenetrating web of coevolving, cocreative relationships. By exploring Kabbalah and the new scientific paradigm within the context of shared evolutionary principles, I seek to demonstrate a viable alternative to the prevailing deterministic worldview. By going beyond the limits of determinism and re–visioning existence as an evolutionary, emergent phenomenon, we can establish a new basis for an authentic dialogue between science and religion.     

Science,Scientism and Imaginaries of Publics in the UK: Passive Objects,Incipient Threats

Two-way public engagement with science is an important modern democratic practice that paradoxically coincides with the intensifications of state surveillance and policing of publics and social movements engaging with issues involving science. This raises important questions about the contemporary anatomies of publics, and what count as legitimate expressions of public concern over scientific stakes within the knowledge economy. Implicit in the tension between inclusion and surveillance are concerns over the social meaning and authority of science amongst both scientific practitioners and publics. Bringing science and technology studies (STS) and social movement studies (SMS) into dialogue offers a means to explore the neglected ontological stakes in the framing of scientific imaginaries of publics, and public imaginaries of science. Post-WWII UK science–publics relations have emerged in three significant modalities, with publics imagined: as passive non-entities, circa 1950–1990 (continuing); as incipient threats due to presumed deficits in their grasp of science 1990–2000 (continuing); and, since circa 2000, as politicised threats requiring state control. Each modality is shaped by elite denial of the normative commitments embedded within science as surrogate politics—scientism. In each mode, scientistic elite emphasis on epistemic issues forecloses engagement with broader public meanings expressing legitimate normative and ontological differences. Fusing the more epistemic focus of STS with SMS's emphasis on meaning and democratic process offers a route to deeper democratic forms of public engagement with what is called science, which would also precipitate more accountability in elite discourses around science and technology.     

科学心理学的观念与人文科学的逻辑奠基

科学心理学观念的普遍兴起,是19世纪中叶错综复杂的思想史背景的产物。只有在人类思想及其历史作为整体的关系背景中,才能澄清这个观念的内在本性。也只有在系统地接受这个背景的制约关系中,这个观念才能获得其真理的实现。能否在人类思想作为整体中胜任并执行其理论职能,成为我们检验一种心理学体系之真理性的途径之一:科学心理学观念只有实现为现象学心理学,才能执行其为人文科学奠基的逻辑职能; 反之亦然。这个关系还从否定方面暗示着,一切以异化的形式实现的心理学,都不可能真正承担起为人文科学奠基的逻辑职能,并因而违背了我们的常识。     

The Non-Conceptual Dimension of Social Mediation: Toward a Materialist Aufhebung of Hegel

ABSTRACT

Sellars’s relationship with Hegel is complex and itself ‘dialectical‘ in interesting ways. Sellars follows Hegel in recognizing that the normativity essential to intentionality and conceptuality is a social phenomenon. But Sellars criticizes Hegel for his inability to independently explain the emergence and function of this essential group phenomenon. I shall argue that Sellars’s critique of Hegel on this count is part of a larger, metaphysically ambitious and rigorously realistic position, which, though turning Hegel’s ontology on its head, shares with Hegel the methodological ambition of arriving at a position which is globally explanatorily closed. Further, it will be suggested that although Sellars would surely have been critical of the ontological reification of Hegel’s dialectical method, he nonetheless reserves an important role for conceptual dialectical development right at the heart of his system, namely in his understanding of the conceptual evolution that leads from the manifest to the scientific image. Finally, I shall argue that Sellars thereby aspires to provide nothing less than a materialist aufhebung of idealist Hegelian dialectics.     

What Do Religion Scholars Really Want? Scholarly Values in the Scientific Study of Religion

This article presents selected findings of the Values in Scholarship on Religion (VISOR) project. Conversations about the values and norms that ought to shape the academic study of religion are quite common but typically based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience. The goal of VISOR was to gather data that could ground debates about the values that scholars of religion prize. Here, we present statistical analyses of VISOR data that shed light on the values guiding members of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) and the ways in which these compare with the values of members of other academic associations and other disciplines that study religion. Compared to current members of SSSR, members of the broader field of scholars whose approach to religion is sociological are more likely to be younger, female, liberal, and nonreligious. This sea change will put pressure on the SSSR to adapt.     

Pragmatism as a research program--a reply to Arras

This paper is a reaction to an article by John Arras published earlier in this journal. In this article Arras argues that freestanding pragmatism has little new to offer to bioethics. We respond to some of Arras' arguments and conclude that, although he overstates his case at certain points, his critique is, broadly speaking, correct. We then introduce and discuss an alternative approach to pragmatist ethics, one which puts to work the ideas and insights of pragmatism conceived as a broad philosophical movement, without lapsing into a canon dependent approach. The approach we propose exhibits a number of characteristics that differ from Arras'saccount of freestanding pragmatism and offers something new to bioethics.     

Roles for scientific societies in promoting integrity in publication ethics

Scientific societies can have a powerful influence on the professional lives of scientists. Using this influence, they have a responsibility to make long-term commitments and investments in promoting integrity in publication, just as in other areas of research ethics. Concepts that can inform the thinking and activities of scientific societies with regard to publication ethics are: the “hidden curriculum” (the message of actions rather than formal statements), a fresh look at the components of acting with integrity, deviancy as a normally occurring phenomenon in human society, and the scientific community as an actual community. A society’s first step is to decide what values it will promote, within the framework of present-day standards of good conduct of science and given the society’s history and traditions. The society then must create educational programs that serve members across their careers. Scientific societies must take seriously the implications of the problem; set policies and standards for publication ethics for their members; educate about and enforce the standards; bring the issues before the members early and often; and maintain continuing dialogue with editors. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AAAS-Office of Research Integrity (ORI) meeting in Washington DC on the theme: “The Role and Activities of Scientific Societies in Promoting Research Integrity” held on April 10–11, 2000.     

The Metaphorical Conception of Scientific Explanation: Rereading Mary Hesse

Summary  In 1997, five decades after the publication of the landmark Hempel-Oppenheim article “Studies in the Logic of Explanation”([1948], 1970) Wesley Salmon published Causality and Explanation, a book that re-addresses the issue of scientific explanation. He provided an overview of the basic approaches to scientific explanation, stressed their weaknesses, and offered novel insights. However, he failed to mention Mary Hesse’s approach to the topic and analyze her standpoint. This essay brings front and center Hesse’s approach to scientific explanation formulated in the 1960s and argues that rereading Hesse’s account one can overcome the criticisms addressed towards another influential theory of explanation that of Bas van Fraassen’s. Furthermore, it could bring the traditional philosophy of science into a fruitful conversation with science and technology studies and gender studies in science, technology and medicine.     

DNA patents and scientific discovery and innovation: Assessing benefits and risks

This paper focuses on the question of whether DNA patents help or hinder scientific discovery and innovation. While DNA patents create a wide variety of possible benefits and harms for science and technology, the evidence we have at this point in time supports the conclusion that they will probably promote rather than hamper scientific discovery and innovation. However, since DNA patenting is a relatively recent phenomena and the biotechnology industry is in its infancy, we should continue to gather evidence about the effects of DNA patenting on scientific innovation and discovery as well the economic, social, and legal conditions relating to intellectual property in biotechnology. We should give the free market, the courts, researchers, and patent offices a chance to settle issues related to innovation and discovery, before we seek legislative remedies, since new laws proposed at this point would lack adequate foresight and could do more harm than good. However, we should be open to new laws or regulations on DNA patents if they are required to in order to deal with some of the biases and limitations of the free market.