Our standard images of science and scientists fail to portray the way in which scientists themselves experience science—as an aesthetic quest. They ignore the way in which scientists are driven by a passion for beauty and a childlike thirst to… Read More ›
While science is typically expected to be neutral and objective, critical approaches have their established place in the social sciences. All social scientists are aware of the critical difference that their research can or should make in society, and some… Read More ›
Weber’s is an investigation into the nature of the scientist’s calling or vocation, given the disenchantment of the world. Weber notes what most of the students in his audience already appreciate—that this disenchantment necessarily precludes historically influential characterizations of the… Read More ›
In these days of the COVID-19 pandemic it makes sense to recall Max Weber, who died from an epidemic virus 100 years ago, in order both to reflect on the practical value of scientific methods and the possibility of science… Read More ›
An ongoing discussion and its emerging provocations and conflicting interpretations indicates, perhaps more than anything else, the significance of a topic or a text. Such a text or topic brings further into focus prominent contemporary issues which require serious reconsideration…. Read More ›
Like Elvis, Mark Erickson is looking for trouble. Referring to Donna Haraway, Erickson argues that our vocation demands us to “stay with the trouble” (2020, 22). And while I wholeheartedly agree with him that social scientists should seek and stay… Read More ›
In my paper (Kasavin 2020), I responded to the question “what is the value of science” in the way that invites further clarification. I assume that the value of science is its special epistemological status. Yet, this value is not justified by… Read More ›
Max Weber’s ‘Science as a Vocation’ caused considerable controversy in the early 1920s across German academe. Significant critics weighed in on all sides including Ernst Curtius, a leading philologist, philosopher Heinrich Rickert (a close personal friend of the Webers), Arthur… Read More ›
It is now fashionable to condemn our species’ exalted self-regard for precipitating that apocalypse in waiting known as the ‘Anthropocene’. Nevertheless, I shall heretically argue that we really know more than we normally think we do. But I don’t mean… Read More ›
Author Information: Jim Collier, Virginia Tech, jim.collier@vt.edu. Collier, James H. “Social Epistemology for the One and the Many: An Essay Review.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 8 (2018): 15-40. Jim Collier’s article “Social Epistemology for the One… Read More ›