The Triumph of Uncertainty : Science and Self in the Postmodern Age / Alfred I. Tauber, author.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tauber, Alfred I., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tauber, Alfred I.

Science and civilization.

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Science--History--20th century.

Genre:

History.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (406 pages)

Edition:

1st edition.

Place of Publication:

Central European University Press 2022

Budapest : Central European University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Tauber, a leading figure in history and philosophy of science, offers a unique autobiographical overview of how science as a discipline of thought has been characterized by philosophers and historians over the past century. He frames his account through science's - and his own personal - quest for explanatory certainty. During the 20th century, that goal was displaced by the probabilistic epistemologies required to characterize complex systems, whether in physics, biology, economics, or the social sciences. This "triumph of uncertainty" is the inevitable outcome of irreducible chance and indeterminate causality. And beyond these epistemological limits, the interpretative faculties of the individual scientist (what Michael Polanyi called the "personal" and the "tacit") invariably affects how data are understood. Whereas positivism had claimed radical objectivity, post-positivists have identified how a web of non-epistemic values and social forces profoundly influence the production of knowledge. Tauber presents a case study of these claims by showing how immunology has incorporated extra-curricular social elements in its theoretical development and how these in turn have influenced interpretive problems swirling around biological identity, individuality, and cognition. The correspondence between contemporary immunology and cultural notions of selfhood are strong and striking. Just as uncertainty haunts science, so too does it hover over current constructions of personal identity, self knowledge, and moral agency. Across the chasm of uncertainty, science and selfhood speak.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. Beginnings

Chapter 2. On Ways of Knowing

Chapter 3. Transitions

Chapter 4. Rewriting Immunology

Chapter 5. The Immune Self

Chapter 6. Systems Philosophically Considered

Chapter 7. Pursuing the Enigmatic Self

Chapter 8. Rethinking Science

Chapter 9. Outline of a Post-Positivist Philosophy of Science

Chapter 10. A New Agenda

Chapter 11. Personalizing Science

Chapter 12. Moral Epistemology

Chapter 13. Requiem for the Ego

Chapter 14. Identity Reconsidered

Conclusion

Appendix

The Modernist Self

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Tauber, Alfred I. The Triumph of Uncertainty

ISBN:

9789633865828

9633865824

9781003723219

OCLC:

1338838626

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access