Conference: Transformation, degradation, disapearrance of scientific objects (Prague, June 14-15, 2016)
"Transformation, degradation, disapearrance of scientific objects"
International conference - Prague, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, June 14-15, 2016
We invite submissions of papers to our conference, see below (or the
attached document) for details. Please send an abstract (1 page, in
English) to Olivier.Clain@soc.ulaval.ca and marsalek@flu.cas.cz. We aim to accept up to four submitted papers.
Deadline for submissions: March 28, 2016. Notification: April 4, 2016.
Invited speakers:
Theodore Arabatzis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
Amy Dahan Dalmedico (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS, Paris)
Ladislav Kvasz (The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
Transformation, degradation, disappearance of scientific objects
In the course of the 20th century, the history of science has been
emancipated from the scheme of linear progress which would inexorably
bring the scholars ever closer to the truth of reality. At the time of
their introduction in the epistemological discourse, the concepts of
paradigm and scientific revolution, just like that of épistémè, for
example, thus testified to the emphasis placed onto the ruptures
affecting the history of scientific knowledge. Surprisingly enough, the
readings investigating the complexity of the abandonment of ‘scientific
objects’ and yielding to a new science, are rare. Thus, at the time when
the ‘inventions’, the ‘constructions’, the ‘genealogies’ of objects,
classifications, practices and scientific problems appear at the heart
of numerous current scholarship in history and philosophy of science, we
would like to draw the attention to a marginalized phenomenon, not to
say a neglected one, which is the process of the ‘disappearance’ of
‘scientific objects’.
We suggest that the notion of ‘scientific objects’ can be understood in a
twofold way. It includes not only what a knowing subject aims at, i.e.
the object of scientific thought in the strict sense, the one that the
science strives to know when answering the questions which organize it.
The notion also comprises various elements of science’s architecture,
fed by knowledge it produces: the experimental devices, the method, the
forms of expression, the criteria of verification, etc. (it seems
appropriate to call ‘epistemic objects’ these elements of science in
order to distinguish them from the ‘objects’ the scientific thought
examines).
We invite therefore to explore the ‘fine structure’ of the dynamics of
science, while insisting on the assertion that the disappearance of
scientific objects is not reducible to their pure and simple absence.
Even if proven inadequate, obsolete or null, the outmoded scientific
objects do not faint purely and simply from the scientific practice.
Consequently, we intend to study their shifts and transformations and
examine the frequent prolongation of their efficiency.
Thereby we offer a hypothesis that trajectories of ‘scientific objects’,
extremely varied as they are, find themselves fashioned by the
transformations of these objects, the oscillations of their status,
their progressive deformations, etc. These alterations establish various
modalities of a process of disappearance, which is in fact only rarely
achieved abruptly. We thus raise the following questions: How does
knowledge abandon its objects? What transformations do the latter
undergo? What degradations are they prone to? Is there some logic of
disappearance affiliated either to the structure of the reality or to
the nature of the discipline that deals with it? These questions take on
particular importance for disciplines in which profound breaks and
scientific revolutions are blurred, as it is the case for the social
sciences. Yet it seems appropriate to address them in the natural
sciences as well in a hope of a renewal of their philosophies.
Contact persons:
Prof. Olivier Clain (Université de Laval, Canada): Olivier.Clain@soc.ulaval.ca
Dr. Jan Maršálek (The Czech Academy of Sciences): marsalek@flu.cas.cz
8 papers altogether will be presented within two days (30 minutes per
presentation + 20-30 minutes for discussion). To propose a paper, please
prepare an abstract (1 page) before 28 March 2016.
The conference is free of charge.
A thematic issue of the journal Theory of Science on the conference
topic is projected. See the independent call for papers here (the
journal does not restrict the range of its contributors to the
conference participants): http://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/