Event
Continental Philosophy of Science / Specialist Doctoral School Course Spring 2015
We experience a period of scientific revolution: a dramatic increase in scope, scale and pace in scientific research. Notably the life sciences challenge our understanding of nature, life, technology and the role and place of human beings. While scientific breakthroughs entail ‘narcissistic offenses’ (Freud), and undermine traditional human self-images, new developments in technology and science increase our sway over nature, down to the molecular level, and up to the point of becoming uncanny. Indeed, we may be opening up a new chapter in the history of life and human existence. The scientific ‘will to know’ is driven by a desire to control and refurbish life, but at the same time we are awed by the bewildering complexity of living systems that continues to escape us. This basic dynamics (‘science and its discontents’) will be probed by keeping track of what is happening in cutting-edge fields such as synthetic biology and brain research. Special attention will be given to genres of the imagination (science novels, cinema, drama, art) as windows into the dynamics and (future) impact of contemporary scientific research. Yet, the transition outlined above is not only a scientific, but also a philosophical one. Our world-view, our Zeitgeist seems adrift. What explains the pervasive ‘will to know’ of ‘hypermodern’ life science fields (such as synthetic biology, systems biology and neuro-science)? What is pushing and driving these technology-dense research practices? Can we envision an ‘updated’ version of Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit, analysing and assessing emerging life sciences research as configurations of the way we experience ourselves and the world around us? To address these questions, key philosophical concepts will be explored: how can they help us to come to a critical assessment of the scientific present?