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- Convenor:
-
Bogdan Balicki
(University of Szczecin)
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- Location:
- Economy 16
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Warsaw
Long Abstract:
Since the beginning science and technology studies actively reinvent and reconstruct widely shared pictures of science and its operations. When they introduced and studied historical, social and political elements of scientific practices, the reactions from outside the STS were critical and even hostile. Controversial nature of STS in this respect never ceased to exist, suffice to mention the so called 'science wars'. Nevertheless, it is the STS that demonstrated that controversies about pictures of science commonly shared either by scientists themselves, or the public, are never just epistemological. Those views, once they start to circulate in the social world, fulfill many important functions, and manipulating them became all the more important in times of recent political changes of science and university. It is particularly visible in talking about the "new science" or as some would put it "neoliberal science". To ask if such a science is able to endure well and in long term is one thing. Another is to investigate the public pictures of science and narrations about it. The session will focus exactly on the general views of science and its circulation in the public sphere (in political and academic institutions, in decision making circles etc.).
The papers will be presented in the order shown and within one session
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 September, 2014, -Katharina Neges (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt)
Paper long abstract:
When people started to take social and political factors into account to explain the structure of science it was a philosophical landslide. Nowadays even strong relativistic approaches are taken seriously. In contrast to this, the idea of relinquishing the concept of truth in philosophy of science still hasn't found many supporters. Nevertheless there is a handful philosophers who argue in favor of renouncing truth - or at least in favor of taking the concept of truth as optional. I shall concentrate on one of these namely Josef Mitterer who is developing a theory called Non-Dualism.
Ontological queries concerning the nature and the significance of the material world arise when social and political factors are seriously considered within a theory about the scientific enterprise. Even if I think that Mitterer's account is very promising this is an especially sensible issue when non-dualism is discussed.
My aim is to reconstruct the origin of such types of concerns in a non-dualistic setting and to make plausible that there is no need to worry for someone who considers a non-dualistic approach to science. I shall argue that the same reasons, which favor leaving questions about possible ontological statements within the non-dualistic framework undecided, are leading directly to the opportunity and possibility of thinking about a concept of science without truth.
Nathan Charlier (University of Namur)
Paper long abstract:
Both in Europe and in the United States, scientific research and science, technology and innovation (STI) policies have undergone profound changes for about thirty years. These transitions are often framed along dichotomous lines : an 'old regime' characterized by strong public funding, independent academia and a linear conception of innovation has supposedly been replaced by a 'new regime' in which research and innovation are conceived in systemic terms, regarding their economic and societal relevance (Rip 2000). My proposal states that this conceptualization is of little use when it comes to studying the evolution of STI policies at the regional level. In this paper, I investigate how global master narratives like the "Knowledge-based Economy", the "Grand societal Challenges", "Science, the endless Frontier", "Responsible Research and Innovation", etc. are locally articulated, and thereby become grounded in regional STI policymaking, research, and innovation. These narratives, as explanatory resources and mobilizing resources, provide stakeholders with different visions; they are related to power relations between groups and individuals, to institutional settings and to policy trajectories. In my contribution, I study the four narratives in context; i.e. in different situated discourses of STI stakeholders. I consider multiple issues: who is telling what, to whom, why, when, where, and in which form. Instead of dichotomizing, investigating the evolutions of STI policies with a narrative framework provides an enriched description for complex local situations, towards a more political reading of the transitions.
Danuta Chmielewska-Banaszak (Institute of Sociology, University of Zielona Góra)
Paper long abstract:
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) shows how problems that sts consider vital: connections of science and practice, an influence politics has on social development, durability of positivist model of science in postmodern world, rationality of science and politics are not separate problems and should be considered together as interchanging domains.
EBP is defined in many ways, as an approach, current, process, theory or method. Its essence lies in using the best scientific evidence in making decisions at the area of public service professional work (healthcare, social services, social politics). EBP is based on The Five Steps strategy: formulating a practical question, searching the best evidence, appraising the evidence thus gathered, applying the results, evaluate outcome.
EBP is a consequence of changes that have taken place for the last 20 years in public sectors of most OECD countries. A philosophy of lean management and New Public Management are a ground of these changes. According to the followers, EBP is a perfect tool for achieving aims of this philosophy.
Spreading of EBP caused (and still does) a lot of criticism. It chiefly concerns using of positivist model of science as an assumption and convictions connected with this model, like: applying of scientific researches to understanding and diagnosing of problems results in better practical effectiveness in different areas of social life; or: social workers, teachers, politicians are rational subjects (that is, act according to classical and determinist decision theory).