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Indlæser... Cosmopolitics I (Posthumanities) (udgave 2010)af Isabelle Stengers (Forfatter), Robert Bononno (Oversætter)
Work InformationCosmopolitiques, tome 1 : La Guerre des sciences af Isabelle Stengers
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From Einstein's quest for a unified field theory to Stephen Hawking's belief that we "would know the mind of God"through such a theory, contemporary science--and physics in particular--has claimed that it alone possesses absolute knowledge of the universe. In a sweeping work of philosophical inquiry, originally published in French in seven volumes, Isabelle Stengers builds on her previous intellectual accomplishments to explore the role and authority of science in modern societies and to challenge its pretensions to objectivity, rationality, and truth. For Stengers, science is a constructive enterprise, a diverse, interdependent, and highly contingent system that does not simply discover preexisting truths but, through specific practices and processes, helps shape them. She addresses conceptual themes crucial for modern science, such as the formation of physical-mathematical intelligibility, from Galilean mechanics and the origin of dynamics to quantum theory, the question of biological reductionism, and the power relations at work in the social and behavioral sciences. Focusing on the polemical and creative aspects of such themes, she argues for an ecology of practices that takes into account how scientific knowledge evolves, the constraints and obligations such practices impose, and the impact they have on the sciences and beyond. This perspective, which demands that competing practices and interests be taken seriously rather than merely (and often condescendingly) tolerated, poses a profound political and ethical challenge. In place of both absolutism and tolerance, she proposes a cosmopolitics--modeled on the ideal scientific method that considers all assumptions and facts as being open to question--that reintegrates the natural and the social, the modern and the archaic, the scientific and the irrational. Cosmopolitics I includes the first three volumes of the original work. Cosmopolitics II will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in Spring 2011. No library descriptions found. |
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Stengers is definitely a philosopher of science and not a scientist, but she goes right into the guts of the beast. A scientist can learn a bit of science from her!
The focus of this book is on some debates in physics from roughly 1850-1900. One of the points she makes is that the issues didn't so much get resolved as dissolved. She mentions that it was the reliance on probability theory by quantum mechanics that led to that dissolution - apparently that will be elaborated in volume 2.
Not that the issues have disappeared, but their form has shifted and their priorities too. A probabilistic explanation of the second law of thermodynamics gives us an answer to the puzzle of the arrow of time. Maybe this answer just raises further questions, but those can be pushed back into the shadows.
This book is not an easy read. I doubt that the translator is to be blamed. Stengers discusses the rise of theoretical physics, by which she means a physics that postulates an underlying reality that is quite different than our superficial experience of appearances. Quantum mechanics and relativity... physics has become esoteric, treasures the esoteric. It seems philosophy has gone that route also, perhaps an example of physics envy. Stengers is vastly easier to make sense of than Derrida, for example. But still, this book is filled with marvelously indirect locution. OK, the ideas it expresses are rather delicate and so maybe all these layers of wrapping are needed. No doubt there is an audience that just needs lots of wrapping in order to appreciate the value of the package contents. I find it a bit annoying, but still I found enough of a thread of intriguing ideas to keep me reading.
This book demands a fair amount of physics background. Stengers talks about Langrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics and really her whole argument is centered on their structure - the way the Hamiltonian formulation makes the advance of time look like just another coordinate transformation. She brings up Boltzmann's H function, which I have totally forgotten. But this comes up in the end game so not much is built up from those details.
Fundamental choices in the structure of a science can give the whole science a pervasive character, long after most everyone has forgotten that any choices were made. And that character can have consequences radiating out far beyond the parochial limits of that science itself. That's my take-away at the abstract level. At a concrete level, I learned a bit of physics and relearned a bit too. Stengers outlines some of the fundamental choices made in physics - I look forward to mulling over her ideas, digesting them and letting them seep into my thinking. This is a deep book with transformative potential.. ( )