Teo, T. (2019). Academic subjectivity, idols, and the vicissitudes of virtues in science: Epistemic modesty versus epistemic grandiosity. In K. O’Doherty, L. Osbeck, E. Schraube & J. Yen (Eds.), Psychological studies of science and technology (pp. 31-48). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. (original) (raw)
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The Western intellectual tradition split over issues concerning the role of reason in revealing the nature of Being and the role of knowledge in contributing to integral being. Throughout human history this had traditionally been the concern of religion. In spite of a shift away from religion and greater confidence in an empirical approach to ultimate questions, the problem remains. Kant attempted to resolve the issue but was unsuccessful. The unresolved controversy subsequently led to the “Continental Divide” (which became a crisis for Western Civilization). This article analyzes the issue and points out why complementarity has been successful in reconciling the controversy.
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Threatened Knowledge discusses the practices of knowing, not-knowing, and not wanting to know from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. In times of "fake news", processes of forgetting and practices of nonknowledge have sparked the interest of historical and sociological research. The common ground between all the contributions in this volume is the assumption that knowledge does not simply increase over time and thus supplant phases of not-knowing. Moreover, the contributions show that knowing and not-knowing function in very similar ways, which means they can be analysed along similar methodological lines. Given the implied juxtaposition between emotions and rational thinking, the role of emotions in the process of knowledge production has often been trivialized in more traditional approaches to the subject. Through a broad geographical and chronological approach, spanning from prognostic texts in the Carolingian period to stock market speculation in early-twentiethcentury United States, this volume demonstrates the important role of emotions in the history of science. By bringing together cultural historians of knowledge, emotions, finance, and global intellectual history, Threatened Knowledge functions as a useful tool for all students and scholars of the history of knowledge and science on a global scale.
Introduction: Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities
Epistemic virtues offer a promising angle for studying interaction between fields of research conventionally classified under the " sciences " and the " humanities. " Given that virtues like objectivity, honesty, and accuracy are not confined to specific disciplines, they allow for comparative historical research between scientific fields as well as for histories of transfer, borrowing, and adaptation between disciplines. Such research, however, requires ample attention to what scientists in specific settings understood epistemic virtues to mean.
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