Christian Dayé | Graz University of Technology (original) (raw)
Papers by Christian Dayé
The American sociologist/American sociologist, May 18, 2024
Science & public policy, Mar 21, 2019
In Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea, Benoît Godin offers what he calls a "genealogica... more In Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea, Benoît Godin offers what he calls a "genealogical history" of innovation models. For Godin, models are diagrammatic representations of complex processes, "conceptualizations,"
Social Science History, Aug 3, 2023
Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, Oct 20, 2014
transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2018
This chapter investigates a specific strategy of knowledge production, the pooling of human carri... more This chapter investigates a specific strategy of knowledge production, the pooling of human carries of knowledge. The hope behind this strategy is that new knowledge emerges in the interaction of these carriers. The chapter explores the philosophical assumptions undergirding this hope by focusing on a historical case. In the 1950s, a group of US researchers involved in Cold War policy analysis began to experiment with a variety of techniques that attempt to systematize the use of expertise in policy advice. In an attempt to establish their doing as "scientific," two of them, Olaf Helmer and Nicholas Rescher, developed an "Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences" that claimed that under certain circumstances, expert opinions were valuable sources of scientific knowledge. The role Helmer and Rescher ascribed to the expert was that of a medium. Therefore, the chapter critically assesses their claims using ideas from media philosophy, and more specifically by an approach developed by philosopher Sybille Krämer, who conceptually approaches media with the metaphor of the messenger.
XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014), Jul 14, 2014
Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 2016
Around 1950, decisive parts of the social sciences were entering a new era, intellectually as wel... more Around 1950, decisive parts of the social sciences were entering a new era, intellectually as well as politically. Intellectually, this era thrived on elaborating and exploring the potentials of new concepts, central among them system, structure, and function. Across disciplinary boundaries, researchers were united by the conviction that a new perspective was required within the social sciences and that the most promising direction was to proceed as the natural sciences did: to identify systems in the social world and to construct models of these systems by relating structures and functions. Politically, this ‘‘high modern social science’’ was embedded in a situation marked by increasing demand for expertise and new and powerful funding agencies and regimes. Hunter Heyck’s Age of System: Understanding the Development of Modern Social Science discusses the career of high modern social science in the United States. Clearly another instance of the burgeoning literature on the history of the social sciences during the Cold War, Age of System nonetheless provides a unique contribution. With the help of research assistant Sylwester Ratowt, Heyck conducted a survey of the most important American academic journals in the social science disciplines: the American Economic Review (AER), American Journal of Sociology (AJS), American Political Science Review (APSR), American Anthropologist (AA), and Psychological Review (PR). Proceeding in steps of five years, they collected research articles published in these outlets from 1925 to 1975, which resulted in a database of 1,828 articles. These were tagged using a list of about 150 keywords, among them the already mentioned notions of system, structure, function, and model. This was done ‘‘manually,’’ not by automated textual analysis, which made it possible to assign a term only if the article under scrutiny employed it in a substantive manner. Further, information on the kind of article (survey report, literature review, report of an experiment, presidential address, etc.) as well as on sources of patronage and on the affiliation of authors was added. Finally, it was also noted whether the article used mathematics to present its argument (see Appendix, pp. 207–216). Regardless of the obvious shortcoming that non-American journals were not included, the resulting database is already a crucial improvement for the historiography of the social sciences. The strength of Heyck’s quantitative approach becomes clear with the first result presented in Age of System: While the percentage of ‘‘articles employing the core concepts and methods of high modern social science (system, structure, function, modeling) rose from less than 7 percent of the sample in 1930 to just over 60 percent in 1970’’ (p. 2; cf. p. 21f), claims that seek to establish a monopoly of this specific form of social scientific thinking in these decades can be proven wrong. System thinking might have been dominant, but not without alternatives; and these alternatives were also present in the flagship journals of the social science disciplines. Given the relevance and potential of Heyck’s data, it is surprising that only some of the chapters integrate results from the quantitative analysis in their arguments. In my view, the strongest chapters are those that make use of the dataset, mostly Chapters One and Two and, albeit to a much smaller degree, Chapter Six. Though well written, informative and reflective of Heyck’s broad knowledge of the relevant literatures, the other chapters do not deliver the same novelty. Chapter Two reports data on the funding scene for the social sciences, arguing that what is commonly seen as one funding regime in fact consists of two successive funding systems. The first, thriving from 1945 to the 1960s, supported problem-centered, interdisciplinary research, whereas Reviews 609
Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Soziologie, Dec 1, 2005
Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Po... more Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Posarnig im Rahmen von KAVN (KUNST://ABSEITS VOM NETZ) initi-ierten Projekte interventionistischer Kunst, zu denen er Begleitstudien verfasste.1 Diese Projekte thematisierten fast ...
Concepts and strategies in plant sciences, 2023
Part of the rationale behind the introduction of the term cisgenesis was the expectation that due... more Part of the rationale behind the introduction of the term cisgenesis was the expectation that due to the "more natural" character of the genetic modification, cisgenic plants would be socially more acceptable than transgenic ones. This chapter assesses whether this expectation was justified. It thereby addresses three arenas of social acceptability: public perception, consumer preferences, and legal regulation. Discussing and comparing recent studies from four geographical areas across the globe-Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia and New Zealand-the chapter shows that the expectation was justified, and that cisgenic plants are treated as being more acceptable than other forms of genetic modification. Yet, there are considerable differences across the three arenas of social acceptability. In Australia, Canada, and the United States of America, the legal regulation of cisgenic plants is less restrictive than in Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Also, the public perceptions are rather diverse across these countries, as are the factors that are deemed most influential in informing public opinion and consumer decisions. While people in North America appear to be most interested in individual benefits of the products (improved quality, health aspects), Europeans are more likely to accept cisgenic plants and derived C. Dayé (B) • A.
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 2014
On foreign territories: Delphi, Political Gaming, and the subcuta neous relevance of academic tri... more On foreign territories: Delphi, Political Gaming, and the subcuta neous relevance of academic tribes. Delphi and Political Gaming were the first social scientific methods to rely on expert knowledge in order to prognosticate future developments and trends. Both techniques were developed in the early 1950s at the California-based RAND Corporation. Despite this closeness, the epistemic roles of the experts differed greatly. While Delphi views experts as carriers of universal knowledge, political gaming takes a more culturalist and relativist stance towards knowledge. This historical case is used to develop a more sophisticated concept of academic tribes, which focuses on the aspect of descent and emphasizes the continuing relevance of the tribal culture for the scientist's identity even after leaving the place of academic socialization.
The American sociologist/American sociologist, May 18, 2024
Science & public policy, Mar 21, 2019
In Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea, Benoît Godin offers what he calls a "genealogica... more In Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea, Benoît Godin offers what he calls a "genealogical history" of innovation models. For Godin, models are diagrammatic representations of complex processes, "conceptualizations,"
Social Science History, Aug 3, 2023
Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, Oct 20, 2014
transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2018
This chapter investigates a specific strategy of knowledge production, the pooling of human carri... more This chapter investigates a specific strategy of knowledge production, the pooling of human carries of knowledge. The hope behind this strategy is that new knowledge emerges in the interaction of these carriers. The chapter explores the philosophical assumptions undergirding this hope by focusing on a historical case. In the 1950s, a group of US researchers involved in Cold War policy analysis began to experiment with a variety of techniques that attempt to systematize the use of expertise in policy advice. In an attempt to establish their doing as "scientific," two of them, Olaf Helmer and Nicholas Rescher, developed an "Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences" that claimed that under certain circumstances, expert opinions were valuable sources of scientific knowledge. The role Helmer and Rescher ascribed to the expert was that of a medium. Therefore, the chapter critically assesses their claims using ideas from media philosophy, and more specifically by an approach developed by philosopher Sybille Krämer, who conceptually approaches media with the metaphor of the messenger.
XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014), Jul 14, 2014
Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 2016
Around 1950, decisive parts of the social sciences were entering a new era, intellectually as wel... more Around 1950, decisive parts of the social sciences were entering a new era, intellectually as well as politically. Intellectually, this era thrived on elaborating and exploring the potentials of new concepts, central among them system, structure, and function. Across disciplinary boundaries, researchers were united by the conviction that a new perspective was required within the social sciences and that the most promising direction was to proceed as the natural sciences did: to identify systems in the social world and to construct models of these systems by relating structures and functions. Politically, this ‘‘high modern social science’’ was embedded in a situation marked by increasing demand for expertise and new and powerful funding agencies and regimes. Hunter Heyck’s Age of System: Understanding the Development of Modern Social Science discusses the career of high modern social science in the United States. Clearly another instance of the burgeoning literature on the history of the social sciences during the Cold War, Age of System nonetheless provides a unique contribution. With the help of research assistant Sylwester Ratowt, Heyck conducted a survey of the most important American academic journals in the social science disciplines: the American Economic Review (AER), American Journal of Sociology (AJS), American Political Science Review (APSR), American Anthropologist (AA), and Psychological Review (PR). Proceeding in steps of five years, they collected research articles published in these outlets from 1925 to 1975, which resulted in a database of 1,828 articles. These were tagged using a list of about 150 keywords, among them the already mentioned notions of system, structure, function, and model. This was done ‘‘manually,’’ not by automated textual analysis, which made it possible to assign a term only if the article under scrutiny employed it in a substantive manner. Further, information on the kind of article (survey report, literature review, report of an experiment, presidential address, etc.) as well as on sources of patronage and on the affiliation of authors was added. Finally, it was also noted whether the article used mathematics to present its argument (see Appendix, pp. 207–216). Regardless of the obvious shortcoming that non-American journals were not included, the resulting database is already a crucial improvement for the historiography of the social sciences. The strength of Heyck’s quantitative approach becomes clear with the first result presented in Age of System: While the percentage of ‘‘articles employing the core concepts and methods of high modern social science (system, structure, function, modeling) rose from less than 7 percent of the sample in 1930 to just over 60 percent in 1970’’ (p. 2; cf. p. 21f), claims that seek to establish a monopoly of this specific form of social scientific thinking in these decades can be proven wrong. System thinking might have been dominant, but not without alternatives; and these alternatives were also present in the flagship journals of the social science disciplines. Given the relevance and potential of Heyck’s data, it is surprising that only some of the chapters integrate results from the quantitative analysis in their arguments. In my view, the strongest chapters are those that make use of the dataset, mostly Chapters One and Two and, albeit to a much smaller degree, Chapter Six. Though well written, informative and reflective of Heyck’s broad knowledge of the relevant literatures, the other chapters do not deliver the same novelty. Chapter Two reports data on the funding scene for the social sciences, arguing that what is commonly seen as one funding regime in fact consists of two successive funding systems. The first, thriving from 1945 to the 1960s, supported problem-centered, interdisciplinary research, whereas Reviews 609
Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Soziologie, Dec 1, 2005
Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Po... more Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Posarnig im Rahmen von KAVN (KUNST://ABSEITS VOM NETZ) initi-ierten Projekte interventionistischer Kunst, zu denen er Begleitstudien verfasste.1 Diese Projekte thematisierten fast ...
Concepts and strategies in plant sciences, 2023
Part of the rationale behind the introduction of the term cisgenesis was the expectation that due... more Part of the rationale behind the introduction of the term cisgenesis was the expectation that due to the "more natural" character of the genetic modification, cisgenic plants would be socially more acceptable than transgenic ones. This chapter assesses whether this expectation was justified. It thereby addresses three arenas of social acceptability: public perception, consumer preferences, and legal regulation. Discussing and comparing recent studies from four geographical areas across the globe-Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia and New Zealand-the chapter shows that the expectation was justified, and that cisgenic plants are treated as being more acceptable than other forms of genetic modification. Yet, there are considerable differences across the three arenas of social acceptability. In Australia, Canada, and the United States of America, the legal regulation of cisgenic plants is less restrictive than in Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Also, the public perceptions are rather diverse across these countries, as are the factors that are deemed most influential in informing public opinion and consumer decisions. While people in North America appear to be most interested in individual benefits of the products (improved quality, health aspects), Europeans are more likely to accept cisgenic plants and derived C. Dayé (B) • A.
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 2014
On foreign territories: Delphi, Political Gaming, and the subcuta neous relevance of academic tri... more On foreign territories: Delphi, Political Gaming, and the subcuta neous relevance of academic tribes. Delphi and Political Gaming were the first social scientific methods to rely on expert knowledge in order to prognosticate future developments and trends. Both techniques were developed in the early 1950s at the California-based RAND Corporation. Despite this closeness, the epistemic roles of the experts differed greatly. While Delphi views experts as carriers of universal knowledge, political gaming takes a more culturalist and relativist stance towards knowledge. This historical case is used to develop a more sophisticated concept of academic tribes, which focuses on the aspect of descent and emphasizes the continuing relevance of the tribal culture for the scientist's identity even after leaving the place of academic socialization.
Acta Sociologica, Jan 1, 2008
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jan 1, 2005
Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Po... more Gedankliche Ausgangspunkte zu Unglück im Glück fand Hans Georg Zilian in einigen der von Erwin Posarnig im Rahmen von KAVN (KUNST://ABSEITS VOM NETZ) initi-ierten Projekte interventionistischer Kunst, zu denen er Begleitstudien verfasste.1 Diese Projekte thematisierten fast ...
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 2009
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 2010
American Journal of Sociology, 2010
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Sektionsveranstaltung Geschichte der Soziologie Gemeinsamer Soziologiekongress „Post-Corona Gesel... more Sektionsveranstaltung Geschichte der Soziologie
Gemeinsamer Soziologiekongress „Post-Corona Gesellschaft? Pandemie, Krise und ihre Folgen“
23. bis 25. August 2021 an der WU Wien