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JournalISSN: 0011-5266

Daedalus 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences
About: Daedalus is an academic journal published by American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Higher education. It has an ISSN identifier of 0011-5266. Over the lifetime, 1510 publications have been published receiving 40960 citations.


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Book ChapterDOI
15 May 2017-Daedalus
TL;DR: The notion that technical things have political qualities has been a persistent and troubling presence in discussions about the meaning of technology, and they deserve explicit attention as mentioned in this paper, but they need explicit attention.
Abstract: In controversies about technology and society, there is no idea more pro vocative than the notion that technical things have political qualities. At issue is the claim that the machines, structures, and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only for their contributions of efficiency and pro ductivity, not merely for their positive and negative environmental side effects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority. Since ideas of this kind have a persistent and troubling presence in discussions about the meaning of technology, they deserve explicit attention.1 Writing in Technology and Culture almost two decades ago, Lewis Mumford gave classic statement to one version of the theme, arguing that "from late neo lithic times in the Near East, right down to our own day, two technologies have recurrently existed side by side: one authoritarian, the other democratic, the first system-centered, immensely powerful, but inherently unstable, the other man-centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable."2 This thesis stands at the heart of Mumford's studies of the city, architecture, and the his tory of technics, and mirrors concerns voiced earlier in the works of Peter Kropotkin, William Morris, and other nineteenth century critics of industrial ism. More recently, antinuclear and prosolar energy movements in Europe and America have adopted a similar notion as a centerpiece in their arguments. Thus environmentalist Denis Hayes concludes, "The increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead society toward authoritarianism. Indeed, safe reliance upon nuclear power as the principal source of energy may be possible only in a totalitarian state." Echoing the views of many proponents of appropri ate technology and the soft energy path, Hayes contends that "dispersed solar sources are more compatible than centralized technologies with social equity, freedom and cultural pluralism."3 An eagerness to interpret technical artifacts in political language is by no means the exclusive property of critics of large-scale high-technology systems. A long lineage of boosters have insisted that the "biggest and best" that science and industry made available were the best guarantees of democracy, freedom, and social justice. The factory system, automobile, telephone, radio, television, the space program, and of course nuclear power itself have all at one time or another been described as democratizing, liberating forces. David Lilienthal, in T.V.A.: Democracy on the March, for example, found this promise in the phos 121

2,031 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2005-Daedalus
TL;DR: Shulman as mentioned in this paper observed that if we wish to understand why professions develop as they do, we should study their nurseries, in this case, their forms of professional preparation.
Abstract: Daedalus Summer 2005 The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson once observed that if you wish to understand a culture, study its nurseries. There is a similar principle for the understanding of professions: if you wish to understand why professions develop as they do, study their nurseries, in this case, their forms of professional preparation. When you do, you will generally detect the characteristic forms of teaching and learning that I have come to call signature pedagogies. These are types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions. In these signature pedagogies, the novices are instructed in critical aspects of the three fundamental dimensions of professional work –to think, to perform, and to act with integrity. But these three dimensions do not receive equal attention across the professions. Thus, in medicine many years are spent learning to perform like a physician; medical schools typically put less emphasis on learning how to act with professional integrity and caring. In contrast, most legal education involves learning to think like a lawyer; law schools show little concern for learning to perform like one. We all intuitively know what signature pedagogies are. These are the forms of instruction that leap to mind when we 1⁄2rst think about the preparation of members of particular professions–for example, in the law, the quasi-Socratic interactions so vividly portrayed in The Paper Chase. The 1⁄2rst year of law school is dominated by the case dialogue method of teaching, in which an authoritative and often authoritarian instructor engages individual students in a large class of many dozens in dialogue about an appellate court case of some complexity. In medicine, we immediately think of the phenomenon of bedside teaching, in which a senior physician or a resident leads a group of novices through the daily clinical rounds, engaging them in discussions about the diagnosis and management of patients’ diseases. I would argue that such pedagogical signatures can teach us a lot about the personalities, dispositions, and cultures Lee S. Shulman

1,524 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2004-Daedalus
TL;DR: For example, this paper argued that the common elements of common moral beliefs in different cultures arise from similar problems (e.g., how to divide power and resources, care for children, and resolve disputes) for which they have often developed similar solutions.
Abstract: maps embellished with fantastical beasts, sixteenth-century wonder chambers 1⁄2lled with natural and technological marvels, even late-twentieth-century supermarket tabloids–all attest to the human fascination with things that violate our basic ideas about reality. The study of morality and culture is therefore an intrinsically fascinating topic. People have created moralities as divergent as those of Nazis and Quakers, headhunters and Jains. And yet, when we look closely at the daily lives of people in divergent cultures, we can 1⁄2nd elements that arise in nearly all of them– for example, reciprocity, loyalty, respect for (some) authority, limits on physical harm, and regulation of eating and sexuality. What are we to make of this pattern of similarity within profound difference? Social scientists have traditionally taken two approaches. The empiricist approach posits that moral knowledge, moral beliefs, moral action, and all the other stuff of morality are learned in childhood. There is no moral faculty or moral anything else built into the human mind, although there may be some innate learning mechanisms that enable the acquisition of later knowledge. To the extent that there are similarities across cultures, they arise because all cultures face similar problems (e.g., how to divide power and resources, care for children, and resolve disputes) for which they have often developed similar solutions. The nativist approach, on the other hand, holds that knowledge about such issues as fairness, harm, and respect for authority has been built into the human mind by evolution. All children who are raised in a reasonable environment will come to develop these ideas, even if they are not taught by adults. To the extent that there are differences across cultures, they arise because of local variation in the implementation of universal moral

1,235 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2005-Daedalus
TL;DR: The American civil religion is not only rather "Unitarian", but also on the austere side, much more related to order, law, and right than to salvation and love as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The words and acts of the founding fathers, especially the first few presidents, shaped the form and tone of the civil religion as it has been maintained ever since. The God of the civil religion is not only rather "Unitarian", he is also on the austere side, much more related to order, law, and right than to salvation and love. Until the Civil War, the American civil religion focused above all on the event of the Revolution, which was seen as the final act of the Exodus from the old lands across the waters. Fortunately, since the American civil religion is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality, the reorganization entailed by such a new situation need not disrupt the American civil religion's continuity.

1,194 citations

Journal Article
01 Jan 1990-Daedalus
TL;DR: In social science, rival theories seeking to answer the same questions rarely confront one another as mentioned in this paper, but alternative formulations remain largely untested, and a focused comparison of rival hypotheses is missing most of all.
Abstract: In social science rival theories seeking to answer the same questions rarely confront one another. Indeed, a variety of perspectives has been employed in research on public perception of risk, but alternative formulations remain largely untested. Missing most of all is a focused comparison of rival hypotheses. One could hardly find many subjects that are better known or considered more important to more people nowadays than the controversies over harm to the natural environment and the human body attributed to modern technology, whether this be from chem ical carcinogens or nuclear power or noxious products introduced by industry into the land, sea, or air, or into water or food supplies. Thus we ask: Why are products and practices once thought to be safe (or

868 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202359
202272
202117
202052
201947
201856