Author: Sabine Maasen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401106738
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
not lie in the conceptual distinctions but in the perceived functions of metaphors and whether in the concrete case they are judged positive or negative. The ongoing debates reflect these concerns quite clearly~ namely that metaphors are judged on the basis of supposed dangers they pose and opportunities they offer. These are the criteria of evaluation that are obviously dependent on the context in which the transfer of meaning occurs. Our fundamental concern is indeed the transfer itself~ its prospects and its limits. Looking at possible functions of metaphors is one approach to under standing and elucidating sentiments about them. The papers in this volume illustrate, by quite different examples, three basic functions of metaphors: illustrative, heuristic~ and constitutive. These functions rep resent different degrees of transfer of meaning. Metaphors are illustrative when they are used primarily as a literary device, to increase the power of conviction of an argument, for example. Although the difference between the illustrative and the heuristic function of metaphors is not great, it does exist: metaphors are used for heuristic purposes whenever "differences" of meaning are employed to open new perspectives and to gain new insights. In the case of "constitutive" metaphors they function to actually replace previous meanings by new ones. Sabine Maasen in her paper introduces the distinction between transfer and transforma tion.
Author: Jose Lopez
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847143733
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
Both classical and contemporary social theorists have created a range of frameworks to formulate and develop concepts of social structure. Focusing on the work of the key theorists, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons and Louis Althusser, Society and its Metaphors maps the linguistic basis of different theories of social structure.
Author: Evelyn Fox Keller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231102056
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
Refiguring Life begins with the history of genetics and embryology, showing how discipline-based metaphors have directed scientists' search for evidence. Keller continues with an exploration of the border traffic between biology and physics, focusing on the question of life and the law of increasing entropy. In a final section she traces the impact of new metaphors, born of the computer revolution, on the course of biological research. Keller shows how these metaphors began as objects of contestation between competing visions of the life sciences, how they came to be recast and appropriated by already established research agendas, and how in the process they ultimately came to subvert those same agendas. Refiguring Life explains how the metaphors and machinery of research are not merely the products of scientific discovery but actually work together to map out the territory along which new metaphors and machines can be constructed. Through their dynamic interaction, Keller points out, they define the realm of the possible in science. Drawing on a remarkable spectrum of theoretical work ranging from Schroedinger to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Refiguring Life fuses issues already prominent in the humanities and social sciences with those in the physical and natural sciences, transgressing disciplinary boundaries to offer a broad view of the natural sciences as a whole. Moving gracefully from genetics to embryology, from physics to biology, from cyberscience to molecular biology, Evelyn Fox Keller demonstrates that scientific inquiry cannot pretend to stand apart from the issues and concerns of the larger society in which it exists.
Author: J. David Archibald
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537662
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
Leading paleontologist J. David Archibald explores the rich history of visual metaphors for biological order from ancient times to the present and their influence on humans' perception of their place in nature, offering uncommon insight into how we went from standing on the top rung of the biological ladder to embodying just one tiny twig on the tree of life. He begins with the ancient but still misguided use of ladders to show biological order, moving then to the use of trees to represent seasonal life cycles and genealogies by the Romans. The early Christian Church then appropriated trees to represent biblical genealogies. The late eighteenth century saw the tree reclaimed to visualize relationships in the natural world, sometimes with a creationist view, but in other instances suggesting evolution. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) exorcised the exclusively creationist view of the "tree of life," and his ideas sparked an explosion of trees, mostly by younger acolytes in Europe. Although Darwin's influence waned in the early twentieth century, by midcentury his ideas held sway once again in time for another and even greater explosion of tree building, generated by the development of new theories on how to assemble trees, the birth of powerful computing, and the emergence of molecular technology. Throughout Archibald's far-reaching study, and with the use of many figures, the evolution of "tree of life" iconography becomes entwined with our changing perception of the world and ourselves.
Author: Andrew S. Reynolds
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656343X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
Does science aim at providing an account of the world that is literally true or objectively true? Understanding the difference requires paying close attention to metaphor and its role in science. In The Third Lens, Andrew S. Reynolds argues that metaphors, like microscopes and other instruments, are a vital tool in the construction of scientific knowledge and explanations of how the world works. More than just rhetorical devices for conveying difficult ideas, metaphors provide the conceptual means with which scientists interpret and intervene in the world. Reynolds here investigates the role of metaphors in the creation of scientific concepts, theories, and explanations, using cell theory as his primary case study. He explores the history of key metaphors that have informed the field and the experimental, philosophical, and social circumstances under which they have emerged, risen in popularity, and in some cases faded from view. How we think of cells—as chambers, organisms, or even machines—makes a difference to scientific practice. Consequently, an accurate picture of how scientific knowledge is made requires us to understand how the metaphors scientists use—and the social values that often surreptitiously accompany them—influence our understanding of the world, and, ultimately, of ourselves. The influence of metaphor isn’t limited to how we think about cells or proteins: in some cases they can even lead to real material change in the very nature of the thing in question, as scientists use technology to alter the reality to fit the metaphor. Drawing out the implications of science’s reliance upon metaphor, The Third Lens will be of interest to anyone working in the areas of history and philosophy of science, science studies, cell and molecular biology, science education and communication, and metaphor in general.
Author: Tom Ziemke
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110196184
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 460
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Book Description
Includes papers, which introduce and elaborate upon the concept of sociocultural situatedness, understood as the way in which minds and cognitive processes are shaped, both individually and collectively, and by their interaction with culturally contextualized structures and practices.
Author: Hunter Heyck
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421417111
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
In the years after World War II, a new generation of scholars redefined the central concepts and practices of social science in America. Before the Second World War, social scientists struggled to define and defend their disciplines. After the war, “high modern” social scientists harnessed new resources in a quest to create a unified understanding of human behavior—and to remake the world in the image of their new model man. In Age of System, Hunter Heyck explains why social scientists—shaped by encounters with the ongoing “organizational revolution” and its revolutionary technologies of communication and control—embraced a new and extremely influential perspective on science and nature, one that conceived of all things in terms of system, structure, function, organization, and process. He also explores how this emerging unified theory of human behavior implied a troubling similarity between humans and machines, with freighted implications for individual liberty and self-direction. These social scientists trained a generation of decision-makers in schools of business and public administration, wrote the basic textbooks from which millions learned how the economy, society, polity, culture, and even the mind worked, and drafted the position papers, books, and articles that helped set the terms of public discourse in a new era of mass media, think tanks, and issue networks. Drawing on close readings of key texts and a broad survey of more than 1,800 journal articles, Heyck follows the dollars—and the dreams—of a generation of scholars that believed in “the system.” He maps the broad landscape of changes in the social sciences, focusing especially intently on the ideas and practices associated with modernization theory, rational choice theory, and modeling. A highly accomplished historian, Heyck relays this complicated story with unusual clarity.
Author: John P. Jackson
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813537368
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 428
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Book Description
Since the eighteenth century when natural historians created the idea of distinct racial categories, scientific findings on race have been a double-edged sword. For some antiracists, science holds the promise of one day providing indisputable evidence to help eradicate racism. On the other hand, science has been enlisted to promote racist beliefs ranging from a justification of slavery in the eighteenth century to the infamous twentieth-century book, The Bell Curve, whose authors argued that racial differences in intelligence resulted in lower test scores for African Americans. This well-organized, readable textbook takes the reader through a chronological account of how and why racial categories were created and how the study of "race" evolved in multiple academic disciplines, including genetics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. In a bibliographic essay at the conclusion of each of the book's seven sections, the authors recommend primary texts that will further the reader's understanding of each topic. Heavily illustrated and enlivened with sidebar biographies, this text is ideal for classroom use.
Author: Alberto Fragio
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030945863
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
This volume uses historical epistemology in order to address several topics in the history of economic thought, with special emphasis on ecological economics, environmental metaphors of scarcity, and mathematical ecology. Using the field of ecological economics as an anchor point, the author reflects on the styles of reasoning in economics with a view towards understanding the nature of disagreement that stems from a failure of communication between rival approaches in economics. A thorough inquiry into issues related to identity, coherence, pluralism, and reception, this volume will appeal to researchers and students interested in history of economic thought, ecological economics, and philosophy of the sciences.
Author: Ciprian Jeler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319786776
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
This book puts multilevel selection theory into a much needed historical perspective. This is achieved by discussing multilevel selection in the first half of the twentieth century, the reasons for the energetic rejection of Wynne-Edwards’ group selectionist stance in the 1960s, Elisabeth Lloyd’s contribution to the units of selection debate, Price’s hierarchical equation and its possible interpretations and, finally, species selection in macroevolutionary contexts. Another idea also seems to emerge from these studies; namely, that perhaps a more sure-footed position for multilevel selection theory would be acquired if we were to show a renewed interest in 'old group selection', i.e. in scenarios in which the differential reproduction of the groups themselves affects the frequencies of either individual-level or group-level traits. This book will be of interest to philosophers and historians of biology, as well as to theoretically inclined biologists who have an interest in multilevel selection theory.
