Although this event is taking place in Leeds, I thought I should bring it to your attention just in case you had an interest and/or a chance to go.
The Centre for History and Philosophy of Science is pleased to announce that
Jerome Ravetz,
author of Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems,
Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford,
and former Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science in the University of Leeds
will speak on
'Thomas Kuhn and the End of Scientism'
on Wednesday 17 October 2012, 4.00-5.30pm
School of Philosophy, Religion, and the History of Science,
Baines Wing G36
All welcome!
ABSTRACT: It has been accepted from the outset that Thomas Kuhn's account of science was both heuristically powerful and philosophically unsubtle. I suggest that beneath the plausible narrative about scientists, there are layered messages. They are not about problems with the concepts that Kuhn deploys, but rather about the unsolved problems that gave rise to his endeavour. We find clues to them in the bits of savage irony with which the text is sprinkled. Some relate obviously to the 'cumulationist' image of science. Others, less obvious, relate to the image of science as a moral endeavour, the core of 'scientism'. I believe that in one particular term, 'devoted' there is evidence of a really deep problem of which Kuhn himself may have been only partly aware. This relates to my own work on the social and ethical problems of scientific knowledge, and the prospect of science after scientism.
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Dr. Jon Topham
Senior Lecturer in History of Science & Director of the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science
School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science
University of Leeds,
Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: +44 (0)113 34 32526
Fax: +44 (0)113 34 33265
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/people/40006/centre_for_history_and_philosophy_of_science/person/872/jonathan_topham ----- End forwarded message -----
