Science and Politics: The Blackett Memorial Lecture

Abstract

Tribute is paid to Lord Blackett - who, like the Author, was President of the Royal Society - as a scientist, as a research leader during World War II and in his capacity as an adviser on science in India. Next, the distinctions amI analogies between science and politics are discussed; pure, applied and strategic research are defined; and the ambivalence between scientists and politicians is pointed out. Science for the Third World is touched on, and the difficulty of offering scientific advice to government is illustrated with the examples of nuclear war and acid rain; to render such advice valuable and relevant, financial independence is essential.     

Tom Stoppard’s Big Picture: The Chaos that is Our World

Abstract

Issues arising from discussions regarding the ‘two cultures’ of science and art are many and varied. Tom Stoppard’s very active utilization of science in many of his plays has resulted in his work — especially the quantum mechanics-informed Hapgood and the chaotics-informed Arcadia — being held up as paradigmatic of one science/art position or another. Often, critical approaches to these plays involve a checklist of scientific facts, implying that the goal of such art is to serve as a delivery device for scientific breakthroughs. While plays, novels, and movies of various sorts may have such goals in mind, Stoppard’s plays do not comfortably fill that agenda, critical arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. Neither do Stoppard’s plays show particular interest in engaging any debate about the superiority of one ‘culture’ over the other. In his two ‘science plays’ in particular, what Stoppard offers is an enrichment of both science and art through metaphorical intertwinings that suggest experience is best served when both camps collaborate. The bigger picture that results argues an overlap in epistemology, namely revealing the uncanny similarity in which artist and scientist approach the material that is our universe.     

The Limits of Science and Trans-Science

Abstract

Many different limits to science have been identified, the most common being those between science and religion, or more generally between fact and value; between science and art; as well as the sociological limits imposed on science because it is becoming too large and unwieldy to be encompassed by a single mind. Here another realm is explored, lying beyond science: we call trans-science those questions which epistemologically are matters of fact, yet are beyond the proficiency of science. Trans-scientific questions consist of very rare occurrences and 'catastrophes' in the Thomian sense. It has been pointed out that unanswerable, trans-scientific questions are usually asked of science by policy makers. Consequently the scientist must concede that his proficiency is limited by this trans-scientific limit to science.     

The Scientist in Literature: Images and Stereotypes – Their Importance

Abstract

Recent surveys of public attitudes to science and scientists have indicated that scientists are seen in highly stereotyped forms, most of them unfavourable. Before scientists can alter their public image, it is necessary for them to understand how it has arisen. One very important way is through the literary tradition – the manner in which scientists have been presented as fictional characters from the medieval alchemists to the computer experts and physicists of contemporary literature. These depictions of the scientist have not only reflected the writers' opinions of science and contemporary scientists, but have, in turn, influenced society's image of the scientist and the public response to science. There are five major stereotypes which recur with varying frequency throughout the history of Western literature: the evil alchemist; the stupid virtuoso or projector; the unfeeling researcher; the heroic adventurer, utopian or world saviour; the helpless discoverer unable to control his discovery. This review traces the emergence of these stereotypes, suggests why they arose and examines the effect they have had on contemporary attitudes to science.     

The Internationalism of German Castle Research: Bodo Ebhardt,His European Network,and the Construction of 'Castle Knowledge'

Abstract

Recent monographs and articles emphasize the strong impact of nationalism and racist thinking on archaeology. In contrast to the treatments which focus on single nation states and on archaeology as a politically legitimate science, this paper explores the tension between internationalism and racist premises in German castle research, and how it manifests itself in the construction of knowledge about medieval castles across national borders. I will focus on Bodo Ebhardt, Germany's most famous and influential castle researcher of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis of his scientific work, and of his personal contact with other European researchers as well as with German politicians and patrons, will shed light on the changes and continuities in his network, and in particular on his construction of the past that was influenced by the formation of this network, which, in turn, affected his assessment of medieval castles.     

Freedom and the Responsibility of Science Science and the Public

Abstract

Academic essays in Germany either start or end with a citation from Goethe. I cannot refrain from this tradition as I have in mind three lines which described the situation in his time and during the last century, but which no longer hold true in our changing world. This is not easy to accept, especially for a scientist.     

The Responsibility of Science for the Future of Mankind

Abstract

Science and technology have brought immense benefits to man, yet through them he has become divorced from nature and he has failed to understand them. Adverse effects have been deliberately hidden, and when they became obvious, have turned science into a scapegoat. Scientists are here presented as unconcerned with the social consequences of their work, whether it affects industry or politics. The endless scientific future is now seen to have strict limits, and, the author proposes, scientists must devote themselves to the problems of mankind's future. Above all, scientists must explain their work in a language which all can understand, so that man can feel again at ease in his scientific civilization.     

Leviathans Old and New: What Collingwood Saw in Hobbes

Summary

R. G. Collingwood presented his major work of political philosophy, The New Leviathan, as an updated version of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. However, his reasons for taking Hobbes's great work as his inspiration have puzzled and eluded many Collingwood scholars, while those interested in the reception of Hobbes's ideas have largely neglected the New Leviathan. In this essay I reveal what Collingwood saw in Hobbes's political philosophy and show how his reading of Hobbes both diverges from other prominent interpretations of the time and invites us to reassess Hobbes's complex association with the origins of liberalism. In doing so, I focus on Collingwood's science of mind, his ideas on society and authority, and his dialectical theory of politics, in each case showing how he engaged with Hobbes in order to elucidate his own vision of civilisation. That vision is based on the development of social consciousness, which involves people coming to understand the body politic as a joint enterprise whereby they confer authority upon those who rule.     

Joseph Priestley as an heir of Newton

ABSTRACT

Like most Enlightenment philosophers, Priestley acknowledges his debt to Newton. However, despite his mentor’s prohibition against “making hypotheses”, in the 1770s, he embarked on a surprising metaphysical epic that led him, the theologian and scientist, to develop in his Disquisitions a bold system that articulated materialism, necessity and Socinianism. This synthesis constitutes the originality of a thinker who wanted to reapprehend science, metaphysics and theology together at the very moment when their dispersion seemed inevitable (and to give them an educational and political extension). It is based on a monistic ontology to which Priestley did not hesitate to give the unexpected name of materialism, at the risk of a number of misunderstandings, while he claims, much to the dismay of Reid, to closely follow the method of Newton. This paper will focus on the relation between Priestley and Newton’s ambiguous inheritance. What is Priestley’s “science” made of? What is its relationship to Newton and his “rules”, to mathematics, to the theory of language, to the so-called “analysis and synthesis method”, to Boscovich? How important is his claim for hypotheses and metaphysics? If Priestley indeed was a Newtonian, he surely was an unorthodox one.     

Feature Reviews

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, first published and distributed to the American public in 1787, presented his mature thoughts on politics, amid a vast array of themes reflective of his own encyclopedic studies. The diverse contents and unusual form of the work have often led modern readers to neglect its overarching political purpose. We argue that when read as a unified whole shaped by an explicit literary structure and rational method, Jefferson's Notes lays the foundation for a new science of republican politics. By engaging and revising key aspects of both the Bible and Enlightenment science, whenever either asserts authoritative claims beyond rational scrutiny that obscure or distort nature, Jefferson overturns false idols that impede our inquiry into natural laws and natural right, and the proper grounds of republican government.     

At Last! The Voegelin Reader

ABSTRACT

The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, one of the great political scientists of the twentieth century, run to 34 volumes. The selection republished in this Reader will provide senior undergraduates and graduate students (and perhaps their teachers) with a wide-ranging introduction to Voegelin's modern but Aristotelean political science. The selection includes excerpts from his Autobiographical Reflections and from his best-known work, The New Science of Politics. There are several examples of his late an alytical essays. Readers unfamiliar with his relationship to Christianity, always a contentious issue, will find his discussions of the relationship of philosophical or noetic symbols and experiences to revelatory of pneumatic ones especially helpful. The editors and the University of Missouri Press have performed a major service to contemporary political science by making this se lection available.     

Administration for Scientific Research

Abstract

Stability and change are the poles of the field in which scientific research exists: Ideally stable – better: growing-resources for ever-changing scientific aims? The author deals first with the 'why' of science management and introduces some basic aspects from the point of view of the German lawyer as science administrator. Dealing next with the 'how' of science management, he gives examples of lines of action in personnel, finance, and procurement using the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum as a model. Finally, he sketches some character traits of a science administrator and a scientist: ideally not opponents, sitting on the poles of stability and change respectively, but partners working together for the enhancement of scientific research in their field.     

Seeds: Contracting the Audience in a Play about Science

Abstract

In pursuing the question ‘what can scientists learn from theatre?’ Particularly, ‘what can scientists, as scientists, learn from theatre?’ this paper argues that science lacks a normative framework that theatre is capable of providing. Despite science’s well-earned epistemic reputation, there is adequate reason to question its ethical reputation, particularly at the point where cutting edge scientific technology impacts society. I consider science as operating in four categories: the scientific method; the scientific hypothesis; the scientific experiment; and the scientist’s personal character. The realms of the scientist’s hypothesis and personal character are those where social pressures are reciprocally exerted, where imaginative play mentality and epistemic values are most in evidence. Theatre can examine these realms effectively because it is able to use narratives that appeal not only to logical and social moral judgements but to emotional and visceral responses, so as to situate science in the social context in which the pressures of law, funding, experimentation, society, and personal ambition converge in ‘the game of life’.

This can be seen in the theatrical process known as ‘contracting with the audience’. I point out a spectrum of traditional narrative tropes by which science makes “contracts with” audiences. The paper draws on theories of entrainment and theatrical game-play from Peter Stromberg and Philippe Gaulier, as well as my own practice and research into the process of contracting with the audience, to propose how to reach beyond tradition and to shift normalising contracts “outside the box”. To illustrate my proposition, I examine the play Seeds by Annabel Soutar as directed by Chris Abraham for Crow’s Theatre and Theatre Porte Parole. Seeds follows the controversial court battles of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against agricultural-biotech corporation Monsanto, which sued him for patent infringement of its Genetically Modified Organism Roundup Ready Canola. Seeds helps its audience define a public arena for discourse even as it brings to our attention the factors that make this difficult to do, while making an excellent contribution to the genre of ‘Documentary Theatre’. It is a successful contract with the audience that creates a public forum for discussion about contemporary ethical debates in science, thereby merging artistic ambiguity and scientific theory.     

Principles of Lightweight Structures in the Sculptural Conceptions of Naum Gabo

Abstract

The Russian-born artist Naum Gabo (1890–1977) often employed new materials and techniques which demonstrate how his spatial conceptions developed towards a sculptural expression of lightness, balance and equilibrium. These principles reverberate with concepts of optimum structures, in which minimum-weight design is achieved through removal of redundant material. Not only formal aspects of his sculptures correspond to this concept, but also Gabo's shared aesthetic and structural concerns with twentieth-century architecture and engineering, in terms of transparency, spatial openness, efficiency and lightweight design are consistent with this idea. Similar notions surfaced in prevailing interests in nature's sense of order and perfection as the basis of biologically-inspired design, which Gabo encountered especially in the work of the biologist D'Arcy Thompson and the art critic Herbert Read. This paper investigates the aesthetic and structural affinities Gabo's sculptures bear with these notions, highlighting how these informed his sculptural conceptions. His oeuvre demonstrates how his constructive technique enabled Gabo to convey an aesthetic that would be appropriate for a modern, industrial society. The aim of this paper is to offer a new way of looking at Gabo's sculptural aesthetic by identifying analogies with theoretical formulations of minimum weight frame-structures, as encountered in the theory of the scientist engineer A.G.M. Michell (1904). Consistent with his historical context, this work demonstrates how Gabo's sculptures convey an aesthetic of balance, equilibrium, and lightness precisely because his sculptural language is rooted in principles of optimum structures to which he responded in visual as well as structural terms.     

Science and theatre in open dialogue: Biblioetica,Le Cas de Sophie K. and the postdramatic science play

Abstract

Judging by the many new ventures into the genre of the 'science play' over the last few years, the surge of interest in science on stage continues unchecked. The most interesting aspect of this trend, however, is not quantity but variety, and the ways in which directors in particular are beginning to challenge the playwright-driven and biographically inflected engagements that have so far dominated science on stage. In this article we discuss two recent productions from two prominent directors: Luca Ronconi's Biblioetica, staged in Turin in February–March 2006, and Jean-François Peyret's Le Cas de Sophie K., given in Paris in April–May. The gulf between these productions and more theatrically conventional plays like Copenhagen and Arcadia is wide, and this new work represents a significant step for science plays in the direction of 'postdramatic theatre', a term used by Hans-Thies Lehmann in his groundbreaking work on the subject. We argue that for many reasons these productions suggest that the interaction of science and the stage lends itself by its very nature to the postdramatic condition.     

Composing Einstein: exploring the kinship of art and science

Abstract

The work Albert Einstein published in 1905 led to a revolution in physics and the way nature is explained. At the same time, his physics touches on profound existential questions which are also dwelt upon in the arts. This article addresses the relatedness of music and physics, art and science. The point of departure is my composition The Einstein Resoundings, and how writing it refined my sensitivity to the deeper layers of creative effort. I discuss points of contact between the spheres of music and physics: the phenomenon of quantum leaps, continuous and discontinuous structures in tone and atom, and the role of continuity and discontinuity in the act of creation. My reflection on the kinship of art and science is based on the notion of complementarities. This allows a double perspective on art and science as different in regard to activity and language, but similar in regard to their mutually complementing characters.     

Science and Theology Diverse Resolutions of an Interdisciplinary Gap by the New Priesthood of Science

Abstract

In an age where the trend towards secularization has been slowed down, new religions and ideological movements are competing with the more traditional positions to be found in society. Those who are anxious to justify their own particular position share only one criterion for comparison with those holding other positions: a belief in the epistemological efficacy of science. A new priesthood of scientist has emerged to offer justification in the name of science for a variety of ideological positions and to explain to a bewildered public what the real relationship is between the various disciplines of science and those of theology or moral and political philosophy. This paper describes the variety of positions taken up by the new priesthood, typifying these as Fundamentalism, Orthodoxy; Liberalism, Modernism, Agnosticism and Atheism.     

On the State of Science

Abstract

Living as we do in a major period of transition, the arguments of impending doom are reviewed but cast aside by the author, provided we continue to improve our natural knowledge, thus altering the patterns of our lives and those of our children. Threats to the freedom of scientific research and insufficient high-level environmental research are other problems facing science; the task of the scientist is to provide the evidence for rational decisions and these should be made known, widely and fully, to government and the public.     

El Roto: A political cartoonist in late capitalist Spain

ABSTRACT

Under the pseudonym of El Roto, Andrés Rábago draws editorial cartoons for El País newspaper on an almost daily basis. Unlike other cartoonists, his political satire rarely depicts real politicians or celebrities but instead focuses on social types. This technique helps him to distance himself from current events as presented by the media and signal the more general causes of political conflicts. This article explores cartoons from recent years in which El Roto represents and interprets manifestations of the economy in everyday life. I show that his editorial cartoons aim to unmask the ideological narratives that attempt to naturalize capitalism as the only possible economic system. His “ideology critique” can thus be described as a political intervention to interrupt the creation and shaping of systems of representation that legitimize this economic and cultural hegemony. This article offers a content analysis of some of El Roto's most relevant cartoons, identifying the most recurrent themes and techniques used in order to consider his position as a cartoonist in Spanish politics.     

Nairn's England and the progressive dilemma: reappraising Tom Nairn on English nationalism

In British political and intellectual circles, there is a longstanding disagreement between those envisaging an opportunity for the development of a radical English patriotism and those resistant to the idea of a progressive English imaginary. Despite their antithetical quality, both divergent frameworks were explored in the work of Scottish nationalist and New Left intellectual Tom Nairn, long before mainstream social science preoccupied itself with the ‘English Question’. Notwithstanding his later espousal of Englishness as a contribution to democratic renewal, Nairn's earlier notion of an inherently regressive nationalism remains the dominant frame for many intellectuals and politicians confronted by the challenges of increasingly politicised English identities. Whilst he has been only one of a number of thinkers and writers who have informed and contested political thinking on this question in the UK, the influence of his early work upon liberal and left circles has been underestimated, an oversight that this article addresses.