XXI Seminário Internacional de
FILOSOFIA E HISTÓRIA DA CIÊNCIA
Disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity and social theory
De 31 de agosto a 23 de setembro de 2010
Participantes
Terry Shinn
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, France
Pesquisador Visitante Fapesp
Anne Marcovich
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, France
Pesquisadora Visitante Fapesp
Patrocínio
Projeto Temático Fapesp 07/53867-0
Departamento de Filosofia/FFLCH/USP
Associação Filosófica Scientiae Studia
Fapesp
Programação
31/agosto – terça-feira
Terry Shinn & Anne Marcovich
Toward a new epistemology? images and forms in nanoscale research
A reflection on epistemology grounded on form anchors thought in materiality. In this scenario, three dimensional coordinates are essential to reasoning. The work in cognitive science of D. Marr and R. Shepard show that recognition of objects and intelligibility are inextricably connected to forms and the relative position of objects as perceived by the eyes. This is very different from the intelligibility grounded on abstraction and mathematics. One can cite Goethe’s thought for whom intelligibility is expressed as form. This framing of intelligibility is largely represented in the classificatory efforts of mineralogists, botanists and zoologists of the xviiith and xixth century. The epistemology of forms is thus rooted in natural history. This contrast sharply with abstract representation of the world formulated by Boltzmann, Planck, Bose and Einstein. We suggest that today there exist a new category of form-based epistemology, different from that of the naturalist’ and that of the abstraction and mathematics, which is exemplified by molecular biology among other fields. If you take the work of Feynman or in France of Friedel, the operation of semi-conductors was largely described and reflected on in terms of band gap, electron transfer and so forth. With the complexification of semi-conductor technology, an additional chapter emerged in the 1970’s and 1980’s when engineers began to explore the characteristics and deficiencies of materials in terms of the position of atoms and molecules. This was the time of the STM and the AFM and materials by design (epitaxy).
Henceforth, images generated by a new family of instruments, provided not simply information about the material world, the very substance of this information, which was size and shape, became the structuring components of thought it-self. Illustrations of this may be seen in nanoscale study of surface where the topology this means the form of molecules in terms of a series of edges and holes is decisive. Molecules are understood with reference to configuration and conformation. Conformation is static while configuration is dynamic. The first is structural; the second may be variable and is determined by the dominance of the environment structure. One perceives certain characteristics of the environment, sometimes amorphous through the form of the element in contact with it. The environment becomes comprehensible through the morphology of the system and its configurations. In the area of magnetism importance of geometry is palpable in the changes of shapes of domains.
As for images, they are an important vector of information. They contribute immensely to the form of the reasoning we deploy to solve problems. Is it perhaps the case that forms and thoughts merge and constitute our representation and understanding of certain phenomena. Today, an increasing amount of research emanates from instruments whose information assumes the form of forms. This is dramatically so in nanoscale research, but it is strongly visible in other realms of sciences such as soft matter. In nanoscale research, images perform two extremely important epistemological functions. First, they offer a representation of objects as concretely as that available to geographers or geologists, with their topological images of the earth. It is exemplified by works on oxyde surfaces. Secondly, they are signals of events, properties, behaviors that occur distantly and faintly in nanoscale object systems or with their environment, like a vessel on the sea which intermittently appears and then disappears on the far horizon. We will attempt to show that form and images are mutually dependent and that this interdependence fuels epistemology.
References
Allamel-Raffin, C. L’apport d’une perspective génétique à l’analyse des images scientifiques. Regards croisés sur les images scientifiques. Protée, 37, 3, p.19-32, 2009.
Denis, M. Les images mentales. Paris: PUF, 1979.
Marcovich, A. & Shinn, T. Forma, epistemologia e imagem nas nanociências. Scientiae Studia, São Paulo, 7, 1, p. 41-62, 2009.
Marcovich, A. Fabriquer des formes qui miment la vie. In: Bensaude-Vincent, B.; Larrère, R. & Nurock, V. Bionano-éthique. Perspectives critiques sur les bionanotechnologies. Paris: Vuibert, 2008. p. 85-91.
Marr, D. Vision. A computational investigation into the human representation and processig of visual informatio. New York: Freeman and Company, 1982.
Shepard, R. N. & Metzler J. Mental rotation of three-dimensional bbjects. Science, 171, p.701-3, 1971.
02/setembro – quinta-feira
Terry Shinn & Anne Marcovich
The triple helix model in the light of Luhmann's sociology
In this lecture, we will interpret the triple helix model advanced by Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz in the light of Niklas Luhmann system’s theory. The originality of the triple helix resides principally in the claim that notably since world war two innovation is generated through interactions between the university, industry and the state. And that the relations between these three strands is strong and interactive. We suggest that Luhmann’s systems theory provides a grammar that allows greater precision in the analysis of the dynamics between academia, enterprise and the State, and also adds a fourth strand to the habitual three strands of the triple helix, notably, society.
The nature of the relationship between Industry, academia and state is not adequately stipulated in the triple helix model. If one considers which strand as a sub-system, Luhmann proffers two alternatives: (1) that the relationship occurs between each sub-system and its environment, or (2) that each sub-system interpenetrate each of the other, in which case, the environment is not relevant. Communication between sub-systems of the sort implied in the triple helix model occurs exclusively in interpenetrating systems. The restricted academia state industry composition of the triple helix is somewhat surprising in an area when science in society is viewed as paramount increasingly important. The eminent characteristic of society lies in the expectation, to use a crucial concept of Luhmann, that it vehicles, and in particular the expectations it harbors for science and technology. For Luhmann, expectation is a signature of a system or a sub-system. Thus contrary to possible anticipations, society does not constitute an environment, but in the case of triple helix, it constitutes a fourth sub-system that interpenetrates the university enterprise and the State.
One can alternatively advance the hypothesis that societies connections with expectations is historically switched off and on, depending on contingencies, and, in this case, it operates as either an environment or a sub-system. When operating as an environment, it exercises only diffuse influence, if any at all, on the interpenetrating sub-systems of government State, industry and academia. We query the historical conditions under which society constitutes an environment or a sub-system. One could ask what are the factors involved in switching off and switching on. In considering the explosive emergence of nanoscale research, may this be explained in terms of the rise of societal expectations, and hence the transformations of society from environment to sub-system.
Extending this line of reasoning, it is the relevance of the theme that affects expectations and expectations that determine the status of the strand as system or environment. This opens the way to the changing status of not simply society also to government and enterprise. According to Luhmann, systems evolve in terms of the emergence of new variations, which in turn connected to selections. This configuration of selection, variation and expectation helps us understand the historical emergence of the Triple helix in recent decades. In the distant past, thematic relevance, selection and variation took place mainly inside academia. Exogenous contingencies were minor. In historically closer periods, expectations, and thus relevance and selections, condensed inside enterprise which became a sub-system which interpenetrated with university. Only since world two, the government expectations take center stage, which allowed it also to become a sub-system, there by influencing cognitive and technical variation and evolution. As declared above, in recent decades the expectations of society switched on, perhaps because of accelerated circulation and synergy between laboratory and enlightened public, and perhaps because of changes in communication technology and extensions in the voice of the public which has now permitted it to become a subsystem – the fourth strand in what we termed the “quadruple helix”. This perspective will be examined in the light of several examples.
References:
Etzkowitz, H. & Leydersdorff, L. Universities and the global knowledge economy: a triple helix of university-industry-government relations. London / New York: Pinter, 1997.
Leydersdorff, L. & Etzkowitz, H. Emergence of a triple helix of university-industry-government relations. Science and Public Policy, 23, p.279-86, 1996.
Luhmann, N. Social systems Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.
Marcovich, A. & Shinn, T. Instrument research, tools and the knowledge enterprise – 1999-2009. Birth and development of dip-pen nanolithography. Submitted Science Technology And Human Values.
10/setembro – terça-feira
Terry Shinn & Anne Marcovich
Revisiting the inter-disciplinarity controversy: dynamics for a "new disciplinarity”
Discussion of inter-disciplinarity typically deals exclusively with the social sciences and humanities, thus ignoring the physical and life sciences, and it insists on the widespread replacement of disciplines by inter-disciplinarity, and even their disappearance. Disciplines are here depicted as throttled by stasis and as only generating restricted or trivial research results. By contrast, inter-disciplinarity is represented as sponsoring research originality and as rich in scope. Our seminar will explore the purely cognitive dynamics of disciplines as opposed to historical, institutional and professional features. Our study focuses on the operation of disciplines in the context of nanoscale research. We will contend that a novel form of disciplinarity is emerging – the “new disciplinarity”. It incorporates three principal elements: combinatorial components, cognitive and boundary elasticity, and multiple temporalities.
The history and today’s stable, mature research practices of nanoscale investigations connects, and often intertwines, instrumentation, sundry materials, methodologies and concepts emanating from a host of disciplines extending from material science, biology, physics, chemistry, physiology and engineering sciences to mathematics. The complexities of research generally require the combination of multiple material, instrumental, methodological, and disciplinary strands. Here the project constitutes the principal referent to determine the selection and relations between the various combinatorial components. At first sight, one might be tempted to interpret such combinatorial configurations as an expression of inter-disciplinarity. However, on closer inspection things are more complicated and subtle.
Over the span of a career, the identity and the intellectual axis of scientists remains the major discipline in which they were initially trained and in which they gradually accumulate a depth of knowledge. Researchers testify that the home discipline provides the lens through which all work is interpreted whatever the domain to which it belongs. The discipline here constitutes a kind of cognitive filter that functions to translate projects attached to an exogenous field into a more familiar and congenial grammar. A practitioner’s discipline is additionally characterized as the domain in which he is capable of asking “a good question”. Researchers indicate that whatever their experience in alternative disciplines, they lack the requisite learning to formulate truly original questions. Though they participate effectively, and often decisively, in alter-disciplinary projects, it is not they who formulate the key question.
Disciplines are robust, sufficiently robust that practitioners may cross the boundary of their discipline to participate in outside projects, subsequently returning to the base discipline. The scientist’s connection to his discipline is elastic. The bond is sufficiently loose and flexible in order to move away from the base; it is sufficiently strong to ensure his return to the hub discipline. Finally, the research trajectories of scientists expressing the new disciplinarity involves multiple temporalities. Duré longue temporality belongs to the home discipline, as connection with it is constant independent of environment and contingencies. Court duré temporality characterizes project work which is evanescent. While individuals may jump from one outside project to another, it is more customary that they circulate between projects within the home discipline and outside projects. When projects assume a synergistic character, an intermediate temporal regime develops. The introduction of combinatorial dynamics, elasticity and multiple temporalities into established scientific disciplines promotes stability-framed flexibility. This may be interpreted as evolutionary adaptation. One thing is certain, to perceive the finegraned cognitive circulation of today’s researchers in terms of un-segmented and un-hierarchized action and interaction, as proposed by advocates of inter-disciplinarity, is to remain blind to recent, crucial elements in contemporary research practices. In the new disciplinarity one perhaps discerns a combination of continuity and accommodation.
References
Abbott, A. Chaos of disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Chandler, J. Introduction: doctrines, disciplines, discourses, departments. Critical Inquiry, 35, p.729-46, 2009.
Combrosio, A. & Keating, P. The disciplinary stakes: the case of chronobiology. Social Studies of Science, 13, p. 323-53, 1983.
Jacobs, J. A. & Frickel, S. Inter-disciplinarity: a critical assessment. Annu. Rev. Sociol., 35, p. 43-65, 2009.
Kevles, D. & Geisson, G. The experimental life science in the xxth century. Osiris, 10, p. 97, 1995.
Klein, J. Interdisciplinarity: history, theory, and practice. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Lamont, M.; Mallard, G. & Guetzkow, J. Rules of fairness beyond blind faith: overcoming the obstacles to interdisciplinary evaluation. Research Evaluation, 15, 1, p.43–55, 2006.
Pickstone, J. A new history of science, technology and medicine: Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Post, R. Debating disciplinarity. Critical Inquiry, 35, p.749-70, 2009.
Wellbery, D. E. The general renters the library: a note on disciplines and complexity. Critical Inquiry, 35, p. 982-94, 2009.
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Organização:
Grupo Temático Estudos de Filosofia e História da
Ciência
Apoio Institucional:
USP e Fapesp
