The Politics of Cognition: Genesis and Development of Ludwik Fleck’s ‘Comparative Epistemology’

Zittel, Claus

doi:10.1524/9783050087092.183

Cited by 8 publications

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“…Even though Fleck's epistemology is valuable to many contemporary philosophical discussions, his work has proved difficult to interpret. On the one hand, Fleck is considered a pioneer of radical social constructivism (Jasanoff, 2012;van den Belt, 2011;Zittel, 2014). He is understood to be the amongst the silliest of relativists (Cunningham, 2002, p. 15;Harré & Krausz, 1996, p. 11) and is linked to the rise of a "post-truth" era (Kienhues et al, 2020;Omodeo, 2020;Strong, 2019).…”

Section: Contemporary Discussion Of Relativism and Fleckmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He is understood to be the amongst the silliest of relativists (Cunningham, 2002, p. 15;Harré & Krausz, 1996, p. 11) and is linked to the rise of a "post-truth" era (Kienhues et al, 2020;Omodeo, 2020;Strong, 2019). On the other hand, some call Fleck's relativism a myth, arguing that he took an epistemic position outside of history in order to criticise scientific positions he did not agree with (Zittel, 2014). Fleck certainly did argue that some scientific claims were mistaken (see below), leading some scholar to interpret the passive element of knowledge as "the hard residue of material reality" (Löwy, 2004a).…”

Section: Contemporary Discussion Of Relativism and Fleckmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ludwik Fleck’s reasonable relativism about science

Binney

2023

Synthese

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An ongoing project in the philosophy of science and medicine is the effort to articulate a form of relativism about science that can find a path between strongly realist and pernicious relativist poles. Recent scholarship on relativism has described the characteristics a philosophy must have in order to be considered a thoroughgoing relativism. These include non-absolutism, multiplicity, dependence, incompatibility, equal validity and non-neutrality. Critics of relativism maintain that these requirements cannot be met without collapsing into a pernicious form of relativism and that attempts to do so have failed. Against this view, I argue that the early twentieth century philosophy of Ludwik Fleck satisfies these requirements. Paying attention to the scientific details of Fleck’s account of active and passive elements of knowledge, and the resistance generated by them, reveals a thoroughgoing and yet reasonable relativism about science.

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Section: Contemporary Discussion Of Relativism and Fleckmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contemporary Discussion Of Relativism and Fleckmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ludwik Fleck’s reasonable relativism about science

Binney

2023

Synthese

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“…Hence, knowledge is a historical matter which can never be reduced to a purely abstract relation between an individual mind and an external world. Polish immunologist and historical epistemologist, Ludwig Fleck called the misleading (neo-positivistic) isolation of a pure subject contemplating an object an epistemologia imaginabilis (that is, an epistemology of the imagination, Fleck, 1979, 21) that has never existed and will never exist, since the subject-object relation is always mediated by culture (Zittel, 2010). From a praxeological perspective à la Bogdanov this mediation is practical.…”

Section: World Transformation: Bacon's Socially Oriented Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Bacon’s Anthropocene

Omodeo

2021

Epistemology &Amp; Philosophy of Science

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The current predicament, marked by an unprecedented environmental crisis and novel debates on the anthropic-technological transformation of the earth-system, calls for a reassessment of the historical-epistemological question of the entanglement between power, knowledge, and nature. Francis Bacon is the classical reference point for this thematic cluster – a focal point for both historical reconstructions and epistemological reflections, for both those who extol the merits of scientific progress and those who criticize the risks posed by its abuse. I begin this essay by considering Merchant’s eco-feminist interpretation of Bacon. Additionally, I briefly recount how Bacon is envisaged as a symbol of science as domination within the critique of capitalism provided in another classic, Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. I also consider the flipside of the reception of Bacon in assessments of our modern scientific world, namely the empowerment-and-emancipation discourse on technology, typical of much of Marxism. In this respect, I deem it expedient to mention the knowledge-power problem in relation to the Anthropocene debate, and in particular in relation to the theme of the transformation of the world in praxeological terms. These considerations, which deal with various assessments of techno-scientific capitalist modernity, are at the basis of my final remarks on the most urgent Anthropocene dilemma, namely, whether we need more or less technoscience. This concerns the historico-political question of whether the ecological limits of growth are an intrinsic limit of capitalism.

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“…It is not necessary to expand on the details of Fleck's thought to appreciate the relevance of his proposal of a culturalist historical epistemology that does not run the risk of post-truth relativism (Zittel 2010). Within a program of political epistemology, his theory of though collectives should be reread against the background of the theory of hegemony and that of thought style should be inserted into a reflection on ideology.…”

Section: Jean-françoismentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Epistemology

Omodeo¹

2019

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The Politics of Cognition: Genesis and Development of Ludwik Fleck’s ‘Comparative Epistemology’

Cited by 8 publications

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Ludwik Fleck’s reasonable relativism about science

Ludwik Fleck’s reasonable relativism about science

Bacon’s Anthropocene

Political Epistemology

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