Progress In Science Progress In Society

This collection examines the features of Western culture and of the practices of science and technology that anchor the idea of progress in the face of more than a half century of intellectual criticism.

This book addresses current societal debates around the globe. Written by respected researchers from France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and Italy, the chapters are based on presentations given at a conference organized by the European Academy of Sciences, in partnership with the Royal Academy of Belgium and French Academy of Sciences, in Brussels (Belgium) in November 2016. The book approaches science and society from a perspective of progress. Does progress in science ultimately translate into progress in society? How can we ensure that scientific progress becomes both materially and intellectually beneficial for society, including people who are far away from or socially excluded from it? Progress is a common feature of science and of human societies. There is no doubt that one of the driving forces of the material and intellectual progress of mankind has been science and technology. However, these are not the only forces acting on human history, so that the role of science and technology is not always fully recognized and sometimes even rejected. The various chapters of this book cover many aspects of these issues, arriving at valuable new insights.

"A book that shakes philosophy of science to its roots. Laudan both destroys and creates. With detailed, scathing criticisms, he attacks the 'pregnant confusions' in extant philosophies of science. The progress they espouse derives from strictly empirical criteria, he complains, and this clashes with historical evidence. Accordingly, Laudan constructs a remedy from historical examples that involves nothing less than the redefinition of scientific rationality and progress . . . Surprisingly, after this reshuffling, science still looks like a noble-and progressive-enterprise ... The glory of Laudan's system is that it preserves scientific rationality and progress in the presence of social influence. We can admit extra-scientific influences without lapsing into complete relativism. . . a must for both observers and practitioners of science." --Physics Today "A critique and substantial revision of the historic theories of scientific rationality and progress (Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, etc.). Laudan focuses on contextual problem solving effectiveness (carefully defined) as a criterion for progress, and expands the notion of 'paradigm' to a 'research tradition,' thus providing a meta-empirical basis for the commensurability of competing theories. From this perspective, Laudan suggests revised programs for history and philosophy of science, the history of ideas, and the sociology of science. A superb work, closely argued, clearly written, and extensively annotated, this book will become a widely required text in intermediate courses."--Choice

Events of the past two decades have challenged many of the fundamental beliefs, institutions, and values of modern western culture--the culture of "progress." Are science and technology really progressive and beneficial? Have they led to the enhancement of welfare, greater hapiness, and moral immprovement? I s the continued growth of material productivity possible? Desirable? Are the institutions of progress viable? Progress and Its Discontents assembles the views on progress of some of America's leading humanists, scientists, and social scientists. Citing disappointed expectations of progress in spheres from science to morals and politics, and the many problems created or left untouched by progress, the editors conclude that the term no longer refers to "an inevitable sequence of improvements" but rather to "an aspiration and compelling obligation." Contributors: Nannerl O. Keohane Georg G. Iggers Alfred G. Meyer Crawford Young Francisco J. Ayala John T. Edsall Gerald Fenberg Bernard D. Davis Gerald Holton Marc J. Roberts H. Stuart Hughes Moses Abramovitz Harvey Brooks Nathan Rosenberg Hollis B. Chenery Gianfranco Poggi Aaron Wildavsky G. Bingham Powell, Jr. Samuel H. Barnes Steven Marcus Murray Krieger Robert C. Elliott Martin E. Marty Daniel Bell Frederick A. Olafson This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

This book is about the concept of progress, its separate varieties, its current rejection, and how it may be reconsidered from a philosophical and scientific basis. John C. Caiazza's main emphasis is on how science is understood as it has a direct impact on social values as expressed by prominent philosophers. He argues that progress is at a standstill, which presents a crisis for Western civilization.Caiazza presents historical examples, both of scientific inquiry and social and cultural themes, to examine the subject of progress. Beginning with the Whig model and progressive political values exemplified by Bacon and Dewey, he also examines other variations, the Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, and totalitarianism. Technology, argues Caiazza, also has a stultifying effect on Western culture and to understand the idea of progress, we must take a philosophic rather than a scientific point of view. Modern cosmology has inevitable humanistic and theological implications, and major contemporary philosophers reject social science in favour of ancient concepts of virtue and ethics.In the end, Caiazza writes that time is an agent, not a neutral plain on which scientific and historical events occur. We can expect technology to keep us in stasis or become aware of the possibility of transcendence. This book will be of interest for students of scientific history and philosophy.