scholarly journals Human, not too Human: Technology, Rites, and Identity

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Author(s):  
Stefania Operto
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Human Behaviors ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract In the social sciences, the term “rite” identifies a set of practices and knowledge that contribute to forming the cultural models of a given society and has the aim of transmitting values and norms, institutionalization of roles, recognition of identity and social cohesion. This article examines the relationship between technology and ritual and the transformations in society resulting from the diffusion of new technologies. Technological progress is not a novelty in human development; though it is the first time in the history of humanity that technology has pervaded the lives of individuals and their relationships. The analyses conducted seem to show that the ritual is not intended to disappear but to change; to change forms and places. Postmodern societies have undergone profound modifications, but the conceptual category of ritual continues to be applicable to many human behaviors and it would be a mistake to support the idea that rituals are weakening.

The Right of Philosophy and the Facts of History: Foucault, Derrida, Descartes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Rockhill
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.

Exorcising the Ghost in the Machine

Philosophy ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 63 (246) ◽  
pp. 487-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Rickman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Direct Bearing ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

The history of philosophy provides part of the history, or pre-history, of the social sciences. As they were struggling into being, or even before they existed, philosophy was hammering out some of the conceptual tools, lines of approach and basic hypotheses. One of the constantly recurring themes in the history of philosophy which has a direct bearing on the social sciences is the relationship between mind and matter.

scholarly journals L'Europe, l'évaluation technologique et la régulation fractale mondiale

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus-Gerd Giesen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regulation Mechanisms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
Different Levels

The study attempts to make a theoretically informed analysis of technology assessment (TA) as part of postfordist global governance. It focuses first on the FAST programme of the EC, designed to regulate the relationship between producers of new technologies (industry, states) and civil society. The author shows that this regulation, based on the expertise of the social sciences, is largely asymmetrical in favour of the former and an attempt to engineer social consensus at the supranational level. The focus shifts then downwards to the numerous national and regional TA institutions in Western Europe which are all parts of a FAST dominated transnational network, as well as upwards to various related global TA activities (OECD, Lisbon Group, etc.). These different levels of analysis demonstrate that TA is politically constructed as a polycentric, non-hierarchical web of interrelated regulation mechanisms. As such, it is argued, it steadily permeates and recombines existing political structures and levels in order to meet as quickly as possible precise demands of legitimization and accumulation, and should therefore be called a « fractal » regulation.

Reflections on Science, Technology and Risk Regulation in Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Spina
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Risk Regulation ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The scientific dimension of risk regulation is obvious. It is accepted that a measure banning a pesticide is to be based on toxicology studies and in particular on the data proving harmful effects for human health or the environment. A more subtle determinant of risk regulation is the ethical dimension of the decisions adopted to control the social risks emerging from new technologies. It is in this context that a document such as the Encyclical letter Laudato Si, on care of the common home of Pope Francis could offer important reflections on how public policy on science and technology could be enriched by including an ethical perspective. The Laudato Si encyclical letter has been accompanied by wide public attention, spurred on by both the huge popularity of Pope Francis and the announced choice of devoting, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, an entire document to environmental issues.

Mead, Dewey, and Their Influence in the Social Sciences

2017 ◽  
pp. 628-650
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Huebner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
George Herbert Mead ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter traces novel aspects of the relationship between George Herbert Mead and John Dewey. It identifies major aspects of Dewey’s reception in and engagement with the social sciences. Dewey’s influence in the social sciences is closely connected with Mead, both in the sense that Dewey’s ideas relevant to the social sciences have been developed in substantial collaboration with Mead and in the sense that Dewey has been interpreted by later social scientists primarily through Mead’s work and the work of Mead’s students and colleagues. Dewey and Mead worked to develop functional and later social psychology, social reform efforts, educational theory, the social history of thought, and other aspects of pragmatist philosophy. Dewey also had moderate influence on the sociologists and anthropologists at Columbia, institutional economists at Chicago and elsewhere, and later European social theorists, and his publications and correspondence about Mead after the latter’s death influenced Mead’s own legacy.

German Engineers and American Social Theory: Historical Perspectives on Professionalization

1988 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 550-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. R. Gispen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Technical Education ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

When historians turn to the social sciences for help with the task of ordering their data or making their sources speak more clearly, the results can be rewarding in unexpected ways. So it is if one applies the twin concepts profession and professionalization to the German context-in particular, to the history of German engineers in the nineteenth century. At first sight, an idea like the “professionalization of the German engineers” seems straightforward enough. In tandem with the growth of Germany's science-based industries and unparalleled system of technical education, it suggests the emergence of the men who occupied the critical positions in these institutions and embodied technological progress. A notion such as the “rise of the German engineering profession,” therefore, stirs visions of a grand metamorphosis, in which the land of poets and thinkers—and of Junkers, bureaucrats, and mandarins—turned into the world of Siemens, Porsche, Mannesmann, Bosch, Diesel, Daimler-Benz, etc.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

AI Narratives

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Intelligent Machines ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imaginative Thinking ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.

Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-58
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

Women in science: from images to data

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Jami
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Women Scientists ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract In recent decades research in the social sciences, including in the history of science, has shown that women scientists continue to be depicted as exceptions to the rule that a normal scientist is a man. The underlying message is that being an outstanding scientist is incompatible with being an ordinary woman. From women scientists’ reported experiences, we learn that family responsibilities as well as sexism in their working environment are two major hindrances to their careers. This experience is now backed by statistical analysis, so that what used to be regarded as an individual problem for each woman of science can now be identified as a multi-layered social phenomenon, to be analysed and remedied as such. Over the last five years, international scientific unions have come together to address these issues, first through the Gender Gap in Science Project, and recently through the setting up of a Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) whose task is to foster measures to reduce the barriers that women scientists have to surmount in their working lives.

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