edd 5229 liberal studies in knowledge society lecture 6 understanding the curriculum content of...

EDD 5229Liberal Studies in Knowledge Society

Lecture 6 Understanding the

Curriculum Content of Liberal Studies III:Science, Technology and Environment in Risk

and Reflexive-modern Society

Understanding the Structure of the Areas of Study: Science, Technology & the Environment

The formal structure outlined by the CCD and HKEAA Module 5: Public health

Theme1: Understanding of public healthTheme2: Science, technology and public health

Module 6: Energy technology and the environmentThe influence of energy technologyThe environment and sustainable development

The organic theoretical structure Reflexive understanding the scientific-technological rationality

of modernity Reflexive modernity and the risk society Politics of risk society

Reflexive Understanding of the Scientific-Technological Rationality of Modernity

The conception of scientism From scientific thinking to scientism

Scientific thinking can be construed as one of the ways of human inquiry, which has been exemplified by natural scientists’ inquiry of the nature. The inquiry is basically made up of the following methodological features.

First, it is empirically based. That is the inquiry is built upon data, which are carefully collected from observations of natural reality.

Second, it is positivistically organized. That is the inquiry is designed and carried out in hypothetical-deductive or nomological-inductive methods, the results of which are to verify or falsify the law-like statements of the reality under study.


The conception of scientism From scientific thinking to scientism

Third, both the inquiry methods and their results are objectively replicable by other researchers to assess the validity and reliability of the inquiry in question.

Fourth, the results of the inquiry are universally applicable. That is the verified statements of reality can be applied to “all” situations across time and space.

Fifth, it believes that collective and concerted efforts of scientists and their verified results can bring truth to human’s understanding of the nature.

Scientism can be conceived as convictions of the validity, reliability and universality of scientific inquiry. As a result has spawned numbers of convictions or even myths in human’s inquiry of reality.


The conception of scientism Empiricism: It refers to the convictions underlying that only e

mpirically observable data are valid evidences in human’s inquiry and the foundations of true knowledge.

Positivism: It refers to the convictions emphasizing that all human’s inquiries must follow the rules of the hypothetical-deductive or nomological-deductive methods. Knowledge obtained by other methods of inquiry are perceived as unscientific and untrue.

Objectivism: It refers to convictions holding that objectivity in scientific inquiry can only be achieved by conforming to the rules that both the inquiry procedures and results are replicable and duplicable.


The conception of scientism Universalism: It refers to the convictions underlining that

knowledge obtained from scientific inquiry must be universally applicable, i.e. to be true across time and places.

Progressivism: It refers to the convictions believing that scientific inquiries can obtain universally valid knowledge of nature and as a whole can progressively reveal the truth underlying natural realities


The conception of Technologism From technological development to technolo

gism According to Ron Westrum’s conception

• Technology can be defined as any human artifacts and things, which are made to facilitate human activities.

• From epistemological perspective, technology can be conceived as something more than human artifacts but also as the techniques and crafts that make use of those artifacts.

• Furthermore, technology in its advanced stages can be conceived the systems of knowledge underlying those artifacts and techniques in use.


The conception of Technologism From technological development to technologi

sm Thomas P. Hughes’s conception

• Technology at its most concrete level is conceived by Hughes as machine. The definition is basically in congruent with that of Westrum.

• From practical point of view, technology can be conceived not just as the operation of a single machine but as a configuration of machines work concertedly as a system.

• Furthermore, as technological systems develop they will constitute continuous and regular human practices at organizational level. These enduring practices and routines can be called social institutions.

• Finally, as technology has been accepted by members of society as useful, meaningful and even ways of life, technology then become part of the culture of a given society.

Artifact

Technique

Knowledge

Machine System Institution Culture

From technological development to technologism


The conception of Technologism Technologism emerges as members of a soci

ety have got so used to the modern technological way of life that they hold strong conviction or even cult to the creditability of technology. As a result they will conduct other part of their human activities in engine-like manners.


The conception of Technologism Predictability: Another belief in technologism is the hu

man’s conviction that technology and its outcome as well as effects are predictable. Hence, we can plan, design or even engineer our lives and our future in technological ways.

Calculability: The third component of technologism is the human’s conviction that technology with its procedures and outcomes are all calculable, i.e. recordable, quantifiable and computable. Hence, we can organize our lives and future in quantifiable and calculable terms.

Manageability: Building on its predictability, calculability, human beings come to believe that we can manipulate technology as well as our lives and future according to our desires.


The conception of Technologism Controllability: Finally, with the help of all these capaci

ties of technology, modern men/women have come to believe that technology as well as the human lives and future under its command are all under control.


The postmodernist challenge: Jean-Fransois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition: A Report

on Knowledge (1979) indicates that “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress of the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functions, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements -- narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on." (1984/1979: xxiii-xxiv)


The postmodernist challenge: Among the metanarratives under the criticism of postmoderni

st is the credulity of scientific-technological rationality. Along with it is the incredulity project towards the reliability, predictability, calculability, manageability and controllability of the sci

entific-technological enterprise. .

The Risk Society and Reflexive Modernization

From industrial society to risk society The passing of the problem of scarcity in modern industrial

society: As human society move from feudal and agrarian society to modern industrial society in the nineteenth century, one of the core social problems of human society, namely problem of scarcity, has gradually been contained if not resolved.

The emergence of the dominance of the scientific-technological rationality: The containment or even resolution to the problem of scarcity is mainly caused by the constitution of scientific rationality and the techno-economic development of the modern industrial society.


From industrial society to risk society “Risk may be defined as a systematic way of dealing with

hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself.” (Beck, 1992, p. 21) According to the conventional wisdom of scientific-technological rationality, these risks are supposed to be predictable, calculable and manageable. However, as atomic accidents and environmental catastrophes frequent in ever growing scales in recent decades, the enterprise of calculation of risk, which bases on the scientific-technological rationality and modern legal institutions, has practically collapsed. (Beck, 1992, p. 22)


The five theses of risk society (Beck, 1992, p.22-24) To understand the nature of risk society, Ulrich Beck

has formulated it around five theses, which signify the salient features of risk and risk society in contrast to industrial or wealth society.


The five theses of risk society (Beck, 1992, p.22-24) 1. Risks differ essentially from wealth in the following

aspects Risks are irreversible harms to natural and/or social

environments and human bodies and/or minds. As for wealth, it is transferable and entails socially desirable consequences.

Risks “generally remain invisible, are based on causal interpretations and thus initially only exist in terms of the (scientific or anti-scientific) knowledge about them.” (p. 23)

Risks “are particularly open to social definition and construction.” (p. 23)


The five theses of risk society 2. Distribution of wealth constitutes class positions and class s

ociety. It spawns the culture of perceptible or even visible inequality. Distribution of risk constitute risk positions (some social positions or localities are more exposable and thus vulnerable environmental harms). Hence, risk society espouses culture of inperceptible and indefinitive inequality of risk distribution.

Nevertheless, risks “contain a boomerang effect, which breaks up pattern of class and national society.” It is because “ecological disasters and atomic fallout ignore the borders of nations. Even the rich and powerful are not safe from them.” Hence, “risk society in this sense is a world risk society.” (p. 23)


The five theses of risk society 3. Risk society has one feature in common with wealth soc

iety, that is both are conform to “the logic of capitalism.” Both wealth accumulation and risk proliferation are “insatiable demands”. It is because human greed, which is the driving force of wealth accumulation, and convenience and comfort of modernized lives, which is the motor of risk proliferation, are “a bottomless barrel of demands, unsatisfiable, infinite, self producible.” (p. 23)


The five theses of risk society 4. “One can possess wealth, but one can only be afflicted

by risks.” Furthermore risks are generally invisible and can only be causally interpreted. Therefore, risks are ascribed by our knowledge and more specifically level of environmental awareness and consciousness. As Beck bluntly but aptly put it “in class and stratification positions being determines consciousness, while in risk position consciousness determines being.” (p.23)


The five theses of risk society 5. In risk society, “socially recognized risks … contain a particular p

olitical explosive: what was until now considered unpolitical becomes political ─the elimination of the causes in the industrialization process itself.” (p.24) One of the local example is the once unpolitical or even socially unrecognized factor, that is collective memories or common spaces have suddenly risen to prominence in policy of land use, such as the reclamation project of Wan Chai or more specifically the demolishment of the Queen’s Pier. Furthermore, the once most dominant theme in public policy discourse of HK, i.e. “economic development”, has been challenged by some seeming “illegitimate” discursive theme. “What thus emerges in risk society is the political potential of catastrophes. Averting and managing these can include a reorganization of power and authority. Risk society is a catastrophic society.” (p. 24)

Ecological Ethics and Ecocentrism

Anthropocentric ethics: It refers to the value system, which places human values as the predominant consideration. Accordingly, “anthropocentricism refers to the unjustified privileging human beings, as such, at the expense of other forms of life.” (Curry, 2006, p. 43) Ecocentrists argue that “all value is human, and that ethnics should therefore have human being as its principal or even sole focus: ‘Man never left centre stage, nature never has been, and never will be, recognized as autonomous.’ (Jordanova, 1987)” (Curry, 2006, 0. 42-43). It represents an orientation towards environment, which takes environment and nature as resources and utilities under the disposal of human progress.


Light green ethics and sustainable anthropocentrism:

It refers to the orientation towards utilization of environment which takes into consideration of sustainability. As an ethic system, it consists of “a very strong precautionary principle – that is, acting

cautiously. On the assumption that our knowledge of the effects of our action is always exceed by our ignorance;

a definition of ‘sustainability’ that rules out all practices except those that are indefinitely sustainable; and similarly,

a conviction that as much rather as little as possible of nature should be preserved intact.” (Curry, 2006, p. 48)


Mid-green ethnic and biocentrism: It refers to the value system, which take “life itself as value.” (Curry, 2006, p. 44) It represents “’an attitude of respect for nature’, To have this attitude …’is to regard the wild plants and animals of the Earth’s natural ecosystems as possessing inherent worth. That such creatures have inherent worth may be considered the fundamental value presupposition of the attitude of respect.” (Taylor, 1986, p. 71)” (Curry, 2006, 60-61)


Mid-green ethnic and biocentrism: Biocentrism can be characterized with the following believes. “Human are members of the community of life in the sam

e sense, and on the same terms as, other living things. That community, of which humans are a part, consists of

a system of interdependence comprising not only physical conditions, but also relations with other members.

Every such organism is a teleological centre of life, i.e., an individual pursuing its own kind of good (Greek telos=goal or end).

Human are not inherently superior to other organism.” (Taylor, 1986, quoted in Curry, 2006, p. 61)


Dark green ethics and ecocentrism: It refers to the value system which takes the holistic entities of the ecological system, both animate and nonliving element, as the principal concern. As an ecocentric ethics, it “must be able to satisfy at least these criteria: It must be able to recognize the value and therefore support

the ethical defense, of the integrity of species and of ecosystemic places, as well as human and non-human organism. So it is holistic, although not in the sense of necessarily excluding considerations of individual values.

Within nature-as-value, it must (a) allow for conflicts between the interests of human and non-human nature; (b) allow human interest, on occasion, to lose ( It is hardly a level playing-field otherwise). (Curry, 2006, p. 63)

Lecture 6Understanding the Curriculum Content of Liberal Studies III:

Science, Technology and Environment in Risk and Reflexive-modern Society

End

edd 5229 liberal studies in knowledge society lecture 6 understanding the curriculum content of...

Documents

inquiry methods

methods of inquiry

inquiry procedures

humans inquiry of reality

reflexive understanding

natural scientists inquiry

ways of human inquiry

verified results