Scientists revise their criteria of rationality as they enter new domains
"The conventional model of science, technology and society locates sources of violence in politics and ethics, that is, in the application of science and technology, not in scientific knowledge itself.
The fact-value dichotomy is a creation of modern, reductionist science which, while being an epistemic response to a particular set of values, claims to be independent of values. According to the received view, modern science is the discovery of the properties of nature in accordance with a 'scientific method' which generates 'objective', 'neutral', 'universal' knowledge. This view of modern science as a description of reality as it is, unprejudiced by value, can be rejected on at least four grounds.
All knowledge, including modern scientific knowledge, is built through the use of a plurality of methodologies. As Feyerabend observes:
There is no 'scientific method'; there is no single procedure, or set of rules that underlines every piece of research and guarantees that it is 'scientific' and, therefore, trustworthy. The idea of a universal and stable method that is an unchanging measure of adequacy and even the idea of a universal and stable rationality is as unrealistic as the idea of a universal and stable measuring instrument that measures any magnitude, no matter what the circumstances. Scientists revise their standards, their procedures, their criteria of rationality as they move along and perhaps entirely replace their theories and their instruments as they move along and enter new domains of research (Feyerband, 1978, p. 98).
The view that science is just a discovery of facts about nature does not get support from philosophy either. If scientific knowledge is assumed to give true, factual knowledge of 'reality as it is', then we would have to 'conclude that Newtonian theory was true until around 1900, after which it suddenly became false, while relativity and quantum theories became the truth' (Bohm, 1981, p. 4)."
(Vandana Shiva, 1990)
1). Shiva, V. (1990). 'Reductionist science as epistemological violence'. 'Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity'. A. Nandy, Oxford University Press: 314.
Paul Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society (London: New Left Books, 1978).
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981).
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The liberal and servile arts: internal justification versus external purpose
"'Liberal arts,’ therefore, are ways of human action which have their justification in themselves; 'servile arts’ are ways of human action that have a purpose outside of themselves, a purpose, to be more exact, which consists in a useful effect that can be realized through praxis. The 'liberality’ or 'freedom’ of the liberal arts consists in their not being disposable for purposes, that they do not need to be legitimated by a social function, by being 'work.’"
(Josef Pieper, 1998, p.41)
Pieper, J. (1998). 'Leisure, the Basis of Culture'. South Bend, Indiana, St. Augustine's Press.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Save the Arts: a campaign to support the arts in the UK
"The Save the Arts campaign is organised by the London branch of the Turning Point Network, a national consortium of over 2,000 arts organisations and artists dedicated to working together and finding new ways to support the arts in the UK. ...
The first stage of the campaign presents a new video animation by artist David Shrigley highlighting the effect of the funding cuts and a new work by Jeremy Deller with Scott King and William Morris. Each week, the work of a different artist will be released. Mark Wallinger will present the next project.
The costs of David Shrigley's animation have been covered with a grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. All artists engaged in this project have generously donated their time, talent and art."
(Turning Point Network, UK)
Fig.1 David Shrigley (2010), 'An important message about the arts'.
Fig.2 Mark Wallinger (2010), 'Reckless'.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Culture as variable systems of meanings
"In this sense, culture can be understood as 'variable systems of meanings,' which are 'learned and largely shared by an identifiable segment of people' (Rohner, 1984, pp119-120). Because these systems of meanings are not universal but culturally bound, people in different cultures sometimes interpret situations in different ways and hold divergent views and concepts."
(Toshie Imada, 2008, Deep Blue at the University of Michigan)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Rongomaraeroa: contemporary design to tell traditional stories
"Rongomaraeroa, Te Papa’s Marae, is the creation of master carver Cliff Whiting and the Māori advisory group to Te Papa, Ngā Kaiwawao, who came up with the concept to develop a fully functional marae, which would embrace the concept of mana taonga and the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The official opening was on 30 November 1997. ...
New Zealand’s other cultures are represented along the back wall of the meeting house, and the changing relationship between Māori and Pākehā is portrayed inside the cupboards housed in the poutokomanawa (the central heart post of the meeting house)."
(Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa)
[A contemporary design built upon traditional cultural values.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
