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 various statements and declarations of the World Medical Association that address conflicts of interest on the part of physicians as (1) researchers, and (2) practitioners, are examined, with particular reference to the October 2000 revision of the Declaration of Helsinki. Recent contributions to the literature, notably on conflicts of interest in medical research, are noted. Finally, key provisions of the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics (2000–2001 Edition) that address the various forms of conflict of interest that can (...) arise in the practice of medicine are outlined. (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.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause (...) the research involves the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

The idea of dignity seems indissociable from that of humanity, whether in its universal dimension of ‘human dignity’, or in the individual ‘dignity of the person’. This paper provides an outlook on the ethics governing the sciences and technology, in particular the biological sciences and biotechnology, and recalls the notion of ‘glory’, both human and divine, as it infuses a great part of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance cultures, just before the scientific revolution in Europe.

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

We live, according to some, in the century of biology, where we now understand ourselves in radically new ways as the insights of genomics and neuroscience have opened up the workings of our bodies and our minds to new kinds of knowledge and intervention. Is a new figure of the human, and of the social, taking shape in the 21st century? With what consequences for the politics of life today? And with what implications, if any, for the social, cultural (...) and human sciences? These are the issues that are discussed in this article, which argues that a new relation is requred with the life sciences, beyond commentary and critique, if the social and human sciences are to revitalize themselves for the 21st century. (shrink)

The human sciences—including psychology, anthropology, and social theory—are widely held to have been born during the eighteenth century. This first full-length, English-language study of the Enlightenment sciences of humans explores the sources, context, and effects of this major intellectual development. The book argues that the most fundamental inspiration for the Enlightenment was the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Natural philosophers from Copernicus to Newton had created a magisterial science of nature based on the realization that the (...) physical world operated according to orderly, discoverable laws. Eighteenth-century thinkers sought to cap this achievement with a science of _human_ nature. Belief in the existence of laws governing human will and emotion; social change; and politics, economics, and medicine suffused the writings of such disparate figures as Hume, Kant, and Adam Smith and formed the basis of the new sciences. A work of remarkable cross-disciplinary scholarship, this volume illuminates the origins of the human sciences and offers a new view of the Enlightenment that highlights the period's subtle social theory, awareness of ambiguity, and sympathy for historical and cultural difference. (shrink)

A century ago historian of science George Sarton argued that “science is our greatest treasure, but it needs to be humanized or it will do more harm than good”. The systematic cultivation of an “historical spirit,” a philosophical appreciation of the dynamic nature of scientific inquiry, and a recognition that science is irreducibly a “collective enterprise” was, on Sarton’s account, crucial to the humanizing mission he advocated. These elements of Sarton’s program are more relevant than ever as philosophers of science (...) articulate research programs that take seriously the contextual factors, situated interests, and historical contingencies that shape the sciences we study. I trace the trajectory of a long-term philosophical engagement with archaeology that illustrates a succession of ways in which social, cultural, and political values configure inquiry, culminating in a program of collaborative research that raises the question of what role philosophers can usefully play when the challenges of humanizing scientific practice have centrally to do with navigating entrenched asymmetries of power. (shrink)

A work of remarkable cross-disciplinary scholarship, this volume illuminates the origins of the human sciences and offers a new view of the Enlightenment that ...

Kant famously identified 'What is man?' as the fundamental question that encompasses the whole of philosophy. Yet surprisingly, there has been no concerted effort amongst Kant scholars to examine Kant's actual philosophy of man. This book, which is inspired by, and part of, the recent movement that focuses on the empirical dimension of Kant's works, is the first sustained attempt to extract from his writings on biology, anthropology and history an account of the human sciences, their underlying unity, (...) their presuppositions as well as their methodology. In exploring his philosophical and epistemological foundation of the human sciences, it reveals an unexpected picture of Kant, a picture of a thinker who is profoundly attentive to the diversity, detail and complexity of the human world. (shrink)

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary philosophy: his 'philosophical anthropology' spans an unusually wide range of theoretical interests and draws creatively on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions in philosophy. A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of language) which (...) aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences. (shrink)

Communicology is the study of human discourse in all of its forms, ranging from human gesture and speech to art and television. Commuicology also represents the dominant qualitative research paradigm in the discipline of human communication, especially in the applied areas of mass communication, philosophy of communication, and speech communication. Lanigan's work offers the bold and original thesis that Michel Foucault's thematic study of the discourse of desire and power is an elaboration of the problematic discourse explicated (...) in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's interrogation of freedom and terror. Various chapters cover such topics as art versus science, culture and communication, modernity versus postmodernity, feminism versus humanism, research methodology, and the capta versus data distinction for research validity. Actual examples of research cover the aesthetics of painting and sculpture, radio and television, rhetorical criticism of oral and written texts, and the East-West perspective on cross-cultural encounter -- all using the approach of semiotic phenomenology. Two special features of this book make it useful for both teacher and scholar alike. First, Lanigan provides an encyclopedic dictionary that illustrates and defines the theory and method of the human sciences in general and the discipline of communicology in particular. Used for several years by teachers in a number of universities, this dictionary had already become a "classic" among students before its publication here. Second, Lanigan analyzes and illustrates what has been missing for years in the study of Foucault's work: a definition (with appropriate illustrative figures and tables) of Foucault's method of archaeology and genealogy (criticism) for research in the human sciences, especially in the study of human discourse. (shrink)

This book is a pioneering effort to elaborate a general theory of the human sciences, especially history, and to distinguish these sciences radically from the ...

The Human Sciences after the Decade of the Brain brings together exciting new works that address today’s key challenges for a mutual interaction between cognitive neuroscience and the social sciences and humanities. Taking up the methodological and conceptual problems of choosing a neuroscience approach to disciplines such as philosophy, history, ethics and education, the book deepens discussions on a range of epistemological, historical, and sociological questions about the "neuro-turn" in the new millennium. The book’s three sections focus (...) on (i) epistemological questions posed by neurobiologically informed approaches to philosophy and history, (ii) neuroscience’s influence on explanations for social and moral behavior, and (iii) the consequences of the neuro-turn in diverse sectors of social life such as science, education, film, and human self-understanding. This book is an important resource both for students and scholars of cognitive neuroscience and biological psychology interested in the philosophical, ethical, and societal influences of—and on—their work as well as for students and scholars from the social sciences and humanities interested in neuroscience. (shrink)

The construction of the modern subject and the pursuit of human freedom and autonomy, as well as the practice of human science has been pivotal in the development of modern education. But for Foucault, the subject is only the effect of discourses and power?knowledge arrangements, and modern human science is part of the very arrangement that has given birth to the subject who is thoroughly subjected. In his final years, however, a strong passion for human liberty (...) reemerged, and he proposed that a different truth game, the ancient ethical truth practices may actually constitute a self that is free and enjoys self-mastery. In this article, I analyze how modern human science, exemplified by Piaget's child developmental research, has become the means of unfreedom and domination and discuss the ancient ethical truth games Foucault so admired and how they bring self-mastery and freedom to the self. Furthermore, I discuss whether liberal education can ground its notions of autonomy and liberty on the Foucauldian concept of the subject and truth games. (shrink)

Straipsnyje pristatomas žmogaus somatikos mokslas, kuris pirmiausia susiejamas su ankstyvaja Husserlio somatologijos samprata, o vėliau pasiūloma transcendentali šio mokslo pagrindinių prielaidų kritika. Kritiškai nagrinėjama psichofizinė apercepcija ir jos nuoroda į išgyvenamą mirties patirtį. Tada kaip alternatyvi somatikos prielaida pateikiama Husserlio kinestetinės sąmonės samprata. Straipsnnis užbaigiamas fenomenologine kinestetinių sistemų analize susiejant somatikos tyrinėjimus su įsikūnijimo etika bei pagarbos kinestetika. Esminiai žodžiai: fenomenologija, Husserlis, transcendentalumas, somatika, psichofiziologija, gyvenamas kūnas, kinestetinė sąmonė, kinestetinės sistemos, įsikūnijimo etika. After introducing the field of somatics as a (...) human science, I first link it with Husserl’s earlier notion of somatology, then offer a transcendental critique of the root assumption of such a science – the psychophysical apperception – and trace the origin of the latter to the lived experience of death. Next I present Husserl’s notion of kinaesthetic consciousness as an alternative assumption for somatics, concluding with some contributions to a phenomenology of kinaesthetic systems as well as some suggestions for approaching somatic work in the spirit of embodied ethics and the kinaesthetics of respect.Key words: phenomenology, husserl, transcendental, somatics, psychophysical, lived body, kinaesthetic consciousness, kinaesthetic systems, embodied ethics. (shrink)

The term Human Sciences is primarily a French usage, but it refers back to a much deeper tradition in the literature claiming that works of the spirit and human experience cannot be reduced to the realm of causal science, and require different methods. Following Kant, much of this discussion has focused on the problem of the conceptual formation of human experience. Methodologically, discussion has shifted back and forth between an emphasis on concepts, on experience, and external (...) facts. Foucault and Bourdieu extended the critical possibilities of the notion of misrecognition to ally the human sciences with critique. (shrink)

This dissertation studies modern European philosophy's reflection the historical appearance of the human sciences, under the spell of either positivist ideology or historicism, while also making their scientific character a philosophical issue. The work thus hopes to situate the human sciences in an historical context out of which they become unintelligible: the philosophical reflection that, throughout late modernity, has registered their progressive appearance as disciplines of an uncertain and often questioned degree of scientificity. In this way, (...) it challenges a standard practice of 20th c. philosophy of science---to start with the tradition inherited from logical positivism, as though the genre began ex-nihilo around the time, or with, Popper's Logik der Forschung. ;The historical itinerary reconstructed begins with the antinomy nature/freedom in modern philosophy, particularly as it appears in the Kantian corpus. This is followed by an analysis of the dissolution of system philosophy against the background of the movements that constitute the historical matrix of the human sciences: positivism and historicism. Then the work considers the "return to Kant" in Dilthey and the neo-Kantians, which is a conscious attempt to reenact philosophical theories that may serve as scientific meta-language. Finally, the dissertation traces the reception of this Fragestellung in the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger, particularly in the latter's turn from a destruction of metaphysics to a critique of science and technology. ;At the same time, the historical appearance of the sciences of man is considered together with the crisis of philosophy as epistemology or general theory of knowledge. This is done without disregard to the irreversible character of the epochal differend between science and philosophy, evidenced by the crisis of epistemology as scientific meta-language and the rise of an autonomous self-reflection of sciences that constitutes their own "philosophy of science." Thus the work's conclusion attempts to find the epistemological site of a reflection on man that may go beyond the empirical in the discursive space that opens up between natural science and the retreat of philosophy as theory of knowledge. (shrink)

This book presents an analysis of the institutional development of selected social science and humanities disciplines in Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Where most narratives of a scholarly past are presented as a succession of ‘ideas,’ research results and theories, this collection highlights the structural shifts in the systems of higher education, as well as institutions of research and innovation within which these disciplines have developed. This institutional perspective will facilitate systematic comparisons between (...) developments in various disciplines and countries. Across eight country studies the book reveals remarkably different dynamics of disciplinary growth between countries, as well as important interdisciplinary differences within countries. In addition, instances of institutional contractions and downturns and veritable breaks of continuity under authoritarian political regimes can be observed, which are almost totally absent from narratives of individual disciplinary histories. This important work will provide a valuable resource to scholars of disciplinary history, the history of ideas, the sociology of education and of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Offers historical and philosophical arguments for treating the humanities as sciences.

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text (...) is formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

A number of writers have picked out the way knowledge in the human sciences reflexively alters the human subject as what separates these sciences from the natural sciences. Furthermore, they take this reflexivity to be a condition of moral existence. The article sympathetically examines this emphasis on reflexive processes, but it rejects the particular conclusion that the reflexive phenomenon enables us to demarcate the human sciences. The first sections analyse the different meanings that (...) references to reflexivity have in the psychological and social sciences, in philosophy and in material life, and they link these meanings to the post-positivist philosophy of the social sciences. The discussion considers the problems raised (most influentially in the human sciences by Foucault) by being reflexive about reflexivity itself. They put a large question mark against hopes for a revived philosophical anthropology. Whatever the philosophical arguments, however, there is clearly a reflexive practice in the humanities and human sciences which there is not in the natural sciences. This leads to the argument that there are different forms of knowledge for different purposes and that it may therefore be divergence of purpose, not reflexivity itself, that creates differences among the sciences. It is the fact and purpose of human self-reflection that marks out the human sciences. If this is so, then it explains why an apparently circumscribed question about the classification of knowledge turns out to be inseparable from ontological and moral questions about human identity. (shrink)

Cybernetics saturates the humanities. Norbert Wiener’s movement gave vocabulary and hardware to developments all across the early digital era, and still does so today to those who seek to interpret it. Even while the Macy Conferences were still taking place in the early 1950s, talk of feedback and information and pattern had spread to popular culture – and to Europe. The new science created a shared language and culture for surpassing political and intellectual ideas that could be relegated to a (...) pre-computing tradition, and it refracted or channelled currents developing in fields from manufacturing to human physiology. It produced conceptions of the political world, as well as new forms of historical consciousness. It offered frameworks for structuralist thought, but also for policies regarding manufacturing and technology, international relations, and governmental decision-making. But the rising sense of the breadth, importance, and even shock of cybernetics long remained understudied, even as its intellectual assemblages continued to, well, relay. In devices and the so-called ‘digital humanities’, a refracted legacy of cybernetics is also visible. From mainframes to category-frameworks, cybernetics is everywhere in our material and intellectual worlds, even as the name and its meaning have faded. To the extent that cybernetics permeates the human sciences and our culture at large, it remains opaque – an only partially visible legacy often deemed too complex to form a simple object of historical narrative. This special issue on cybernetics in the human sciences outlines the history and stakes of cybernetics, as well as the possibilities of returning to it today. (shrink)

This book expands the concept of the nature of science and provides a practical research alternative for those who work with people and organizations.

Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth Century Domains. Edited by Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) $45.00 and £24.00 cloth, xv + 357 pp.

In February 1997, following the announcement that the Roslin Institute in Scotland had successfully cloned a sheep by means of cell-nuclear transfer, US President Clinton requested the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to review legal and ethical issues of cloning and to recommend federal actions to prevent abuse. In the meantime he directed the heads of executive departments and agencies not to allocate federal funds for ‘cloning human beings’. The Commission consulted with members of relevant academic disciplines and other professions, (...) representatives of interest groups and members of the general public, and received written submissions. Unsurprisingly, given the prospect of human cloning and the sensational announcement in January 1998 by the American physicist-cum-embryologist Richard Seed that he would aim to clone himself, public debate in the US has been fairly voluble. (shrink)

This book discloses a largely unnoticed dialogue between Muslim and Western social thought on the search for meaning and transcendence in the human sciences. The disclosure is accomplished by a comparative reading of contemporary Muslim debates on secular knowledge on the one hand, and of a foundational Western debate on the demise of metaphysics in the human sciences on the other hand. The comparative reading is grounded in a dialogical hermeneutic approach; that is, a hermeneutic approach (...) to texts and cultural traditions that draws upon the work of Hans Georg Gadamer and also upon the insights of inter-religious dialogue. (shrink)

The principle of openness is central to human science approaches to research where the researcher becomes closely involved with the phenomenon under study. This article addresses both the practical and theoretical challenges that confront the researcher who seeks to be open. It also clarifies the meaning of the concept of openness and considers its relationship to the ideal of objectivity. Openness, it is argued, is neither an enduring state nor a trait but requires an ongoing struggle and has different (...) forms at various stages in the research process. Integral to this process is the experience of "being in the dark" which makes it especially difficult for the researcher to remain open. Various ways of managing this experience are presented. (shrink)

THE ISSUE about hermeneutics in modern philosophy and social science goes back to Dilthey and to his claim that we must distinguish between what we could call the natural and human sciences. The claim is that there is something special about the subject matter of the latter which forbids us simply to carry over the method elaborated in natural science to the study of man. But to many, this distinction has seemed unjustified, even obscurantist. One of the important (...) traits of modern science has been its concern about method, ever since Descartes’ great discourse on the subject. To put the sciences of man outside the ban of the methods of natural science seems to be to put them outside the range of science itself. On this view, science must be in principle a unity; or at least it must involve a set of démarches which are the same without discrimination as to the object studied. (shrink)

I argue that the human sciences (i.e. humanities, social- and behavioural sciences) should not try to imitate the methodology of the natural sciences. The human sciences study meaningful phenomena whose nature is decisively different from the merely physical phenomena studied by the natural sciences, and whose study therefore require different methods; meaningful phenomena do not obviously obey natural laws while the merely physical necessarily does. This is not to say that the human (...) sciences do not study an objective reality about which we cannot have genuine knowledge. The notion of objective reality is discussed, and it is suggested that social constructions can be understood as objectively real entities. (shrink)