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SCIENCE
AND THE INSTITUTION
6 - 31 July 1998
Course Director: Mark Notturno
(Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)
Resource Persons:
Joseph Agassi
(University of Tel Aviv, Israel)
Judith Buber Agassi (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Steve Fuller (University of Durham, England)
Aleksandar Kron (University of Belgrade, Serbia)
Miklós Rédei (ELTE, Budapest, Hungary)
Course Description
Karl Popper wrote that the aim of science
is truth, and that the objectivity of science depends
not upon the objectivity of individual
scientists, but upon the friendly/hostile cross-fire of
critical discussion that scientists
undertake in their pursuit of truth. It has been a
commonplace that science is a social
institution ever since. But Popper also wrote that social
institutions must be both well-designed
and well-manned, and that open society cannot
survive if science becomes the exclusive
domain of a closed set of experts.
But how is it possible, without being
an expert, to become an expert in judging experts? Is
academic freedom today merely academic?
Should the state restrict the flow of scientific
information for `security' reasons?
Should scientists play a special role in decisions regarding
the applications of the technologies
that they develop? Is peer review necessary for pruning
the tree of knowledge, or is it just
a covert form of censorship? Should our top scientists have
special access to government officials?
Should military and business interests be represented
in university curricula? Has the `militarization'
of science promoted or impeded basic
research? Should the state spend as
much money on science as it currently does? Should
judicial systems and parliamentary bodies
be responsible for judging whether or not a theory
is `scientific', or whether or not a
technology or drug is `safe', or whether or not a theory
can be taught in schools?
Today, many philosophers are beginning
to believe that our scientific institutions have been
designed and manned in a way that promotes
closed society. In Thomas Kuhn's conception
of the scientific institution, researchers
are mainly concerned with `normal science', and
scientific inquiry itself has little
to do with critical discussion and the pursuit of truth. And
there has been a growing feeling that
the scientific institution has, since the second world
war, grown more and more dependent upon
other social institutions - such as military,
business, education, and government
institutions - whose interests are not always consistent
with the pursuit of truth through critical
discussion. With this in mind, the Popper Project's
1998 Summer School Science and
The Institution will focus upon questions pertaining
to the systems of checks and balances
that have been developed to insure objectivity in
science, and it will attempt to answer
them in the context of a case study of the philosophy
and biography of James B. Conant.
Kuhn is the philosopher most often
associated with the institutional theory of science. But
his mentor, James B. Conant, was the
man who developed the scientific institution itself.
Conant was a chemist who won the international
respect of his peers and nearly every
possible award short of a Nobel Prize.
He wrote well-known texts, such as Science and
Common Sense, in the philosophy of science.
And he was, simultaneously, one of the most
powerful intellectual/political figures
of his time, and a complete enigma to most of his
contemporaries. Conant worked on the
development of poison gas in World War I and on
the atomic bomb in World War II. He
was, in fact, the man who first suggested that the
bomb be used on Hiroshima - only to
fight against the development of the hydrogen bomb.
As President of Harvard University from
America's Great Depression to its McCarthy era,
he was able to influence some of the
most powerful political and military figures of his time -
including Roosevelt, Churchill, Truman,
and Eisenhower - regarding the role that science
and education should play in society.
Conant struggled with issues regarding
academic freedom during the `red scare' period
after the second world war - signing
a statement as President of Harvard that sought to bar
communists from employment as teachers
in the United States, while defending Robert J.
Oppenheimer against charges that he
posed a security risk. Conant was U.S. Ambassador to
Germany (1955-57) during the period
of the greatest nuclear threat to Europe. And by
agreeing that the National Science Foundation
should be willing to undertake defense work
for the Pentagon if requested, he became
one of people most responsible for what has been
called the `militarization of American
science'. Conant's philosophy and biography, for all
of these reasons and more, provides
an ideal case study for the study of Science and The
Institution.
Science and The Institution is a four
week CEU-SUN course that will run for the entire
month of July, 1998.
Its teaching format will consist of:
1. tutorials, in which each student
would meet with an instructor for at least four one-hour
sessions each week to discuss
philosophical problems posed by our readings and
discussions; and
2. seminar discussions, in which
the students and the instructors would meet for three
three-hour sessions each week
as a group to discuss the issues raised by our texts.
3. lectures, by the course director
and faculty.
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