A Programmatic Attempt at an Anthropology of Knowl

Authors: Yehuda Elkana

Publish Date: 1981

Volume: , Issue: , Pages: 1-76

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Abstract

Traditionally the main preoccupations of philosophy of science were the justification or refutation of the conclusions of science critical study of methodology the pursuit of truth presupposing the quest for certainty search for absolutes and universals discarding the ‘merely’ psychological or merely sociological Reason in philosophy of science was epistemic reason History of science while in an historiographies turmoil for decades was mainly preoccupied with the history of Western science and especially though not exclusively its successes it was either a Marxist influenced analysis of ideas following socioeconomic needs or a history of disembodied ideas The latter presupposed that only ideas beget ideas and that an idea once conceived can be taken up or dropped used or abused by an ‘external’ factor like society with its political ideology and technical needs

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