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Science of Science and Reflexivity
01 Jan 2004-
TL;DR: Bourdieu's "Science of Science and Reflexivity" as mentioned in this paper argues that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit.
Abstract: Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died in 2002, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. "Science of Science and Reflexivity" will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology." In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in "Science of Science and Reflexivity" are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths; he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century; and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, "Science of Science and Reflexivity" is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology."
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01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: This paper examined interpreters' life trajectories, including their early childhood experiences, social, political connections to various institutions, educational background, and motivations for becoming interpreters, drawing readers' attention to these interpreters's different understanding of the interpreting profession as well as their subsequently different strategies of self-preservation in the war.
Abstract: This chapter takes a close look at two interpreters, Xia Wenyun and Yan Jiarui, and provides more detailed and finely textured qualitative information to complement and crystallize what was presented in previous chapters, which tended to be more quantitative and focused on interpreters within certain institutions. Examining these interpreters’ life trajectory, including their early childhood experiences, social, political connections to various institutions, educational background, and motivations for becoming interpreters, it draws readers’ attention to these interpreters’ different understanding of the interpreting profession as well as their subsequently different strategies of self-preservation in the war.
1 citations
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In der Hochschulforschung in the Bundesrepublik in den 1970er Jahren, a new Forschungsgebiet etabliert sich innerhalb eines thematischen Bezugsrahmens with der hochschule als dem zentralen fachsgegenstand as discussed by the authors, and ist seither nicht nur with einer inhaltlich breiten Themenpalette, sondern auch mit schnell wechselnden Forsschungsthe
Abstract: Den Selbstbeschreibungen zum Sachstand und zur institutionellen Basis der Hochschulforschung folgend, beginnt die Hochschulforschung in der Bundesrepublik in den 1970er Jahren Das neue Forschungsgebiet etabliert sich nicht als Disziplin, sondern differenziert sich innerhalb eines thematischen Bezugsrahmens mit der Hochschule als dem zentralen Forschungsgegenstand Mit der gegenstandsbezogenen Ausdifferenzierung ist die Hochschulforschung seither nicht nur mit einer inhaltlich breiten Themenpalette, sondern auch mit schnell wechselnden Forschungsthemen konfrontiert An der Forschung sind eine Reihe von auserhochschulischen und an Hochschulen angesiedelte Hochschulforschungsinstitute sowie verschiedene Disziplinen innerhalb der Hochschulen beteiligt Damit ist seit den Anfangen der Hochschulforschung der Anspruch eines interdisziplinaren Selbstverstandnisses verbunden, so dass es die eine Theorie der Hochschule auch zukunftig nicht geben wird
1 citations
TL;DR: The model case of ontophylogenesis shows not only how such cooperation can be useful (both in normal science and in transitional contexts), but mostly why it plays a role in helping biology to get out of its intrinsic paradox.
Abstract: Progresses in leading edge life sciences are undeniable, but there is more to it: from an epistemological perspective, they rest on a paradox vitalizing the very project of biology. Making our understanding of organic functioning all the more objective, life sciences yet exploit a paradigm which structurally rules out any opportunity to explain why biological phenomena are explainable the way we claim they are. As such a blind spot is constitutive of the disciplinary boundaries that condition and permit objective modelling, evolutions in scientists' mode of thought (i.e. paradigm shifts) may require at crucial points some interaction with epistemologists or historians of sciences. The model case of ontophylogenesis thus shows not only how such cooperation can be useful (both in normal science and in transitional contexts), but mostly why it plays a role in helping biology to get out of its intrinsic paradox. The most innovative feature of ontophylogenesis would thus be the following: to give account for the mode of intelligibility it chose by explaining it - in a truly Darwinian manner -in the core of the theory. Though this epistemic move definitely confirms biology to be an autonomous science as long as it faces its constitutive paradox, the methodological detour such realization implied would go through occasional interplay with "exclusively reflexive approaches" - that is to say, humanities.
1 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the ways in which the international remains hidden to, as well as how the international can become part of, our being-in-the-world, and showed the terms in which International Relations (IR) scholars can disclose the world of the international, and what the implications of that knowing are for the discipline.
Abstract: Even though the international permeates our daily lives in many ways, it rarely discloses itself as part of our everyday engagements. Drawing from Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology, this article seeks to explore the ways in which the international remains hidden to, as well as the ways in which the international can become part of, our being-in-the-world. Additionally, it will show the terms in which International Relations (IR) scholars can disclose the world of the international, and what the implications of that ‘knowing’ are for the discipline. Finally, it will explore the possibilities and limitations of a Heidegerrian phenomenology for a social science such as IR.
1 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Administration has been a central element in the trajectory of human society and, much like many examples in the animal kingdom, humans tend to establish hierarchies and the selforganisation of numerous (collaborating) societal groups proves difficult.
Abstract: Administration has been a central element in the trajectory of human society. As Peter Gronn (2010) notes, above a certain numerical threshold, humans, much like many examples in the animal kingdom, tend to establish hierarchies and the selforganisation of numerous (collaborating) societal groups proves difficult.
1 citations