User talk:GaryFisher

Post Modern References

"The argument against theory is by now commonplace in intellectual circles, having been made by countless scholars in undoubtedly every academic discipline:the attempt to devise a theory--a set of universal rules governing a practice--is a futile enterprise, and example of the Enlightenment project par excellence." [1 pg 37]

"In a very real way, then, liberal open mindedness is impossible, in that we are never truly open to beliefs that flow from premises hostile to the premises and beliefs we begin with."[1]

"Consequently, a theory will always fail to make good on its claim to provide a set of rules independent of the practice it describes; and because a theory will always fail in its goal to guide and reform practice, it therefore, by definition, can have no consequence.[1, pg 38]

1. Justifying Belief: Stanley Fish and the Work of Rhetoric, Gary A. Olson, State University of New York Press, 2002, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY, 12207. Gary Olson is Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Idaho State University.

Whether uncovering the gender-laden assumptions built into the Western scientific method, redefining the scientific claim to objectivity, showing the relationship between science's empirical worldview and that of mercantile capitalism, or showing how the powerful language of science exercises its daily cultural authority in our society, the essays in Science Wars announce their own powerful message. Analyzing the antidemocratic tendencies within science and its institutions, they insist on a more accountable relationship between scientists and the communities and environments affected by their research. [2]

2. Social Text 46/47, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2, 1996), pp 1-13. p 7., Andrew Ross. Andrew Ross is the chair of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.

One phenomenon feminist historians have focused on is the rape and torture metaphors in the writings of Sir Francis Bacon and others (e.g. Machiavelli) enthusiastic about the new scientific method. Traditional historians and philosophers have said that these metaphors are irrelevant to the real meanings and referents of scientific concepts held by those who used them and by the public for whom they wrote. But when it comes to regarding nature as a machine, they have quite a different analysis: here, we are told, the metaphor provides the interpretations of Newton's mathematical laws: it directs inquirers to fruitful ways to apply his theory and suggests the appropriate methods of inquiry and the kind of metaphyiscs the new theory supports. But if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe that the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton's laws as "Newton's rape manual" as it is to call them "Newton's mechanics"? [3]

3. Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism. Harding is a professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.