Do democracies need knOWLedge?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-131
Author(s):  
Jennifer Shields ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
Scien Tists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Richard Feynman ◽  
Harry Collins

This paper serves to review the book Why Democracies Need Science, written by Harry Collins and Robert Evans. Of particular interest to this paper is the institution of The Owls, which Collins and Evans propose in their text. A theme which is present throughout the book, a theme which Collins and Evans seek to work through is that of post-truth; the first section of the paper will address the concept of post-truth. Next, the birds of science will be examined, in the second section; this is a classification system Collins and Evans develop, from a borrowed analogy from Richard Feynman. After examining the eagle scien-tists, the hawk scientific fundamentalists, and the vulture philosopher-apologists, attention will be paid to The Owls of science. The third section per-tains to The Owls. The Owls are an institution which Collins and Evans note and which includes social scientists and those with a rigorous under-standing of the social analysis of science [Collins, Evans, 2017, p. 78]. The role of The Owls is to serve to better advise politicians in a post-truth era. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the theorized institution of The Owls is an insufficient mechanism to deal with a post-truth era. After introducing The Owls, the fourth section of the paper considers the neutrality of an Owl, as a consensus does not guarantee truth or correctness. The fifth section then examines The Owls and democracy, as Collins and Evans do not specify the type of democracy in which The Owls would operate. The sixth section notes the exclusivity present within the institution of The Owls, as it is restricted to only two occupations, and is seemingly elitist. Finally, I conclude by asking the question – what does this mean for science and technology studies? As the institution of The Owls seems like an insufficient one to deal with a post-truth era.

La juste distance? Comment les sciences sociales et historiques pensent la différence

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien Bosa
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Sciences Sociales

This article presents three tensions related to the concept of ‘difference’ in the social and historical sciences. The first tension is related to ethnocentrism and anachronism: the author shows that they both represent simultaneously dangers that must be prevented and unavoidable working tools. The second tension is related to the role of conceptualization and to the difficult choice that social scientists have to make between ‘native categories’ and ‘analytical categories’. Finally, the third dilemma is related to the impossibility for the researcher to find a right distance ( juste distance) in relation with the world he studies (be it a familiar or unfamiliar world). The author attempts to show that, although these tensions are often thought of separately, they are in fact closely related, and concern the need for all research projects to be taking the social world as their research object.

Value-driven issues throughout the development of sociological theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social System ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.

scholarly journals A Pattern-Oriented Approach to Fair Use

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Madison
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Fair Use ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Case Application ◽  
Use Factors ◽  
Oriented Approach

More than 150 years into development of the doctrine of "fair use" in American copyright law, there is no end to legislative, judicial, and academic efforts to rationalize the doctrine. Its codification in the 1976 Copyright Act appears to have contributed to its fragmentation, rather than to its coherence. This Article suggests that fair use is neither badly conceived nor badly applied, but that it is too often badly understood. As did much of copyright law, fair use originated as a judicially-unacknowledged effort via the law to validate certain favored social practices and patterns. In the main, it has continued to be applied as such, though too often courts mask their implicit validation of these patterns in the now-conventional "case-by-case" application of the statutory fair use "factors" to the defendant's use of the copyrighted work in question. A more explicit acknowledgement of the role of these patterns in fair use analysis is consistent with fair use and copyright policy and tradition. Importantly, it helps to bridge the often-difficult conceptual gap between fair use claims asserted by individual defendants and the social implications of accepting or rejecting those claims. Finally, a pattern-oriented approach is normatively appropriate, when viewed in light of recent research by cognitive psychologists and other social scientists on patterns and creativity. In immediate terms, the approach should lead to a more consistent and predictable fair use jurisprudence. In the longer term, it should enhance the ability of copyright law to promote creative expression.

Imagination and Art

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the role of imagination and the arts in helping social scientists to theorize well. However deep one's basic knowledge of social theory is, and however many concepts, mechanisms, and theories one knows, unless this knowledge is used in an imaginative way, the result will be dull and noncreative. A good research topic should among other things operate as an analogon—that is, it should be able to set off the theoretical imagination of the social scientist. Then, when a social scientist writes, he or she may want to write in such a way that the reader's theoretical imagination is stirred. Besides imagination, the chapter also discusses the relationship of social theory to art. There are a number of reason for this, including the fact that in modern society, art is perceived as the height of imagination and creativity.

Morality and the Social Sciences

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social

This chapter attempts to identify the tension between morality and the social sciences and recognize its inescapable centrality—and in that way have social scientists think more openly about their commitments. It turns to questions on the role of moral considerations and concerns in economics, and, more generally, to what can be said about the “problem of morality in the social sciences.” This chapter suggests some ways of reconciling the traditional posture of the economist as a “detached scientist” with their role as a morally concerned person, and shows why there is a contemporary increase of concern with moral values, even within the field of economics.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 189-206
Author(s):  
Michael P. Roller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Semiotic Systems ◽  
Oppressed Group

The conclusion revisits the three major inquiries addressed in the text, drawing together the evidence and contexts provided in the previous seven chapters. The first investigates the role of objective settings, such as the systemic and symbolic violence of landscapes and semiotic systems of racialization in justifying or triggering moments of explicit subjective violence such as the Lattimer Massacre. The second inquiry, traces the trajectory of immigrant groups into contemporary patriotic neoliberal subjects. In other terms, it asks how an oppressed group can become complicit with oppression later in history. The third inquiry traces the development of soft forms of social control and coercion across the longue durée of the twentieth century. Specifically, it asks how vertically integrated economic and governmental structures such as neoliberalism and governmentality which serve to stabilize the social antagonisms of the past are enunciated in everyday life.

Society and the Observer

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-102
Author(s):  
Alex Belsey ◽  
Alex Belsey
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Journal Writing ◽  
British Society ◽  
Social Involvement ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lower Social Class

This chapter analyses how, in his wartime journal-writing, Keith Vaughan articulated the social differences and exclusions that he believed were preventing him from fully participating in British society. In his accounts of failing to connect with those around him, he romanticized his failures and dramatized his distance from others, thereby justifying his exclusion and ultimately ascribing himself the powerful (if lonely) role of observer – a position from which he could assert superiority over his fellow C.O.s and men of lower social class whilst representing them in his sketches, paintings, and bathing pictures. The first section of this chapter considers how Vaughan used the early volumes of his journal to record his difficulties in making contact with his fellow man and reinforce them through self-dramatization. The second section explores the strategies employed by Vaughan to emphasize his difference from other individuals and groups, particularly around his homosexuality and artistic inclinations, and therefore justify and maintain his distance from them. The third section argues that Vaughan constructed an empowering role that made use of his remove from male society: that of the observer, enabling him to laud his own powers of perception whilst evading the problems of social involvement and possible surveillance.

The Role of Electronic Signature in the Third Millennium of the Development of International Trade Transactions

2016 ◽  
pp. 170-183
Author(s):  
Amir Bagherian ◽  
Yosef Ebrahimi Nasaband ◽  
Hassan Heidari ◽  
Mahmoud Ebrahimi
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Interests ◽  
Electronic Signature ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Commerce Law ◽  
Data Explosion ◽  
Internet Revolution

Data explosion, in the present era, has created a lot of changes in the social, economic and cultural relationships of all developed societies. Modern areas usually do not have the required legitimacy; however it does not mean that the way for all kinds of violation is open. Social life requires that order and security also govern these areas and protect ethics and public interests. Electronic commerce law is one of these areas a debatable area filled with innovations and surprises. In this regard, waves of internet revolution and the explosion of e-commerce collide with the legal system and influence the concepts of traditional law. One of the key achievements of information technology is changes in traditional regime of evidence claim. In the system of evidence claim in the majority of countries, written reasons and documents are of undeniable importance, in a way that they are mostly used as citation or to defend the Lawsuit. In fact, a lawsuit and adducing the evidence in our legal life largely depend on delivering or issuance of a written paper such as ID cards, pay stubs, payment receipts, contracts, declarations, warnings, statements, and or commercial documents.

The Telework as an Organizational Innovation in the Entities of the Third Sector

2017 ◽  
pp. 570-584
Author(s):  
Ángel Belzunegui ◽  
Amaya Erro-Garcés ◽  
Inma Pastor
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Innovation ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Response Capacity ◽  
Traditional Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Third Sector

This article discusses the role of the telework as an organizational innovation incorporated to the activities of the third sector as well as in the creation of networks and links between these entities. The telework has become a tool that has produced important changes in the traditional organization of the work, and has improved the inter- and intra-organizational communication, in addition to promoting the creation of extensive networks of collaboration in the third sector. The online connection and the provision made in telework mode have also served for the creation of a higher density of contacts between the entities that are grouped in the third sector, done so that it benefits the transmission of information and collaborative practices in providing services to the citizens. Its effectiveness consists in the speed that prints the response capacity of the social economy entities.

Writing History: Problems of Neutrality

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-126
Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Important Case ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
Made In

Part 2 Writing History: Problems of Neutrality This Part of the book challenges widespread assumptions that, where it matters, it is possible or desirable for historians to avoid value judgements and the sorts of evocative descriptions that imply or could reasonably be expected to prompt such judgements. The first section distinguishes between History and particular traditions within the social sciences in order to show why the ‘rules’ about moral evaluation can be different in these differing endeavours. The second section establishes the widespread existence of evocations and evaluations in the very labelling and description of many historical phenomena, suggesting not just how peculiar works of History would look in their absence of evocations and appraisals, but that their absence would often distort what is being reported. These arguments are key to the distinction made in the third section about rejecting value neutrality as a governing ideal while insisting on truthfulness as a historian’s primary duty. The fourth section highlights the nature of most historical accounts as composites of a range of perspectives as it considers questions of context, agency, outcome, and experience. The composition gives rise to the overall impression, evaluative or evocative, provided by the work. The fifth section brings together a number of the chapter’s themes as it examines an important case of the historian’s judgement—judgement about the legitimacy of power in past worlds where legitimacy could be as contested as often today.

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