Michael Polanyi and his generation : origins of the social construction of science / Mary Jo Nye.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nye, Mary Jo.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Polanyi, Michael, 1891-1976--Influence.

Polanyi, Michael.

Polanyi, Michael, 1891-1976--Friends and associates.

Jewish scientists--Hungary--Intellectual life.

Jewish scientists.

Jewish scientists--Germany--Intellectual life.

Science--Philosophy--History--20th century.

Science.

Science--Social aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (429 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Michael Polanyi and His Generation, Mary Jo Nye investigates the role that Michael Polanyi and several of his contemporaries played in the emergence of the social turn in the philosophy of science. This turn involved seeing science as a socially based enterprise that does not rely on empiricism and reason alone but on social communities, behavioral norms, and personal commitments. Nye argues that the roots of the social turn are to be found in the scientific culture and political events of Europe in the 1930's, when scientific intellectuals struggled to defend the universal status of scientific knowledge and to justify public support for science in an era of economic catastrophe, Stalinism and Fascism, and increased demands for applications of science to industry and social welfare. At the center of this struggle was Polanyi, who Nye contends was one of the first advocates of this new conception of science. Nye reconstructs Polanyi's scientific and political milieus in Budapest, Berlin, and Manchester from the 1910's to the 1950's and explains how he and other natural scientists and social scientists of his generation-including J. D. Bernal, Ludwik Fleck, Karl Mannheim, and Robert K. Merton-and the next, such as Thomas Kuhn, forged a politically charged philosophy of science, one that newly emphasized the social construction of science.

Contents:

Scientific culture in Europe and the refugee generation

Germany and Weimar Berlin as the City of Science

Origins of a social perspective: doing physical chemistry in Weimar Berlin

Chemical dynamics and social dynamics in Berlin and Manchester

Liberalism and the economic foundations of the "Republic of Science"

Scientific freedom and the social functions of science

Political foundations of the philosophies of science of Popper, Kuhn, and Polanyi

Personal knowledge: argument, audiences, and sociological engagement

Epilogue: SSK, scientific constructivism, and the paradoxical legacy of Polanyi and the 1930s generation.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613268037

9781283268035

1283268035

9780226610658

0226610659

OCLC:

753480170