Please note that there will be no PostGrad Café on Wednesday 29th March. The next Café will be held at the end of April. Please chack back here, or contact one of the PostGrad Café Team for more details.
On Wednesday 15th March the PostGrad Café hosted Professor Harry Collins. Professor Collins discussed the use of relativism in the Sociology of Knowledge (SSK). He introduced the audience to Karl Mannheim, the founder of the Sociology of Knowledge, whose relativism did not extend to Mathematics and the Sciences. With the development of SSK, which can be traced to the work of Thomas Kuhn and Robert Fleck, these areas of human activity which were previously considered to be the producers of universal Truths were brought within the range of human activities that could be satifactorily analysed from a relativist position.
The PostGrad Café was well attended, with a broad cross section of postgraduate students present. Some had a keen interest in, and some a distaste for, relativist methodolgies in the Social Sciences. Professor Collins described the passionate responses that his positions have evoked. He recalled the seminars where he was accused, in a manner he described as 'McCarthyite', of being a ‘relativist’ in a distinctly pejorative sense, and moreover of not understanding the way in which Science works. At pains to disassociate himself from nihilistic positions that are attached to relativism, he described his embarrassment at the rhetoric of the SSK being used to support moves to include the teaching of Intelligent Design as part of the Science curriculum of some American states.
Professor Collins argued that methodological relativism in SSK means ignoring ideas of scientific truth, and falshood, and concentrating on the social processes that are involved in a group choosing one idea over another. The presentation of this methodological position resulted in a discussion among those present. Some saw a tension, even a contradiction, involved both suspending claims to Truth on the part of Science while making Sociological claims to knowledge of the way that the World is. Professor Collins that while this might be a philosophical contradiction, it was by no means unique. And, nevertheless, he was an skilled practitioner in SSK, and, as a Sociologist of Expertise he had come to the position that it was important to perform the role in which one is skilled.
That said, how much knowledge ought one have of a scientific discipline before conducting a Sociology of the knowledge within that discipline? This question was subject to a lively debate. He rejected the idea that the naïf possesses a privileged position, and the corollary, that estrangement and 'going native' were serious problems for the sociologist. He argued, first, that it is perfectly possible for sociologists to retain professional detachment and perform sociological studies of their own societies. Second, that it impossible to perform a sociological study of a society unless you understand the language of that society. Thus, to do an effective peice of SSK research, Collins argued that you need a not insignificant level of expertise in order to understand the language in which some things become true and others are made false.
Professor Collins explained that the emphasis has changed between the publication of the first book in the 'Golem' series and the publication of the third. Whereas the first two books concentrated on science and technology respectively, the third 'Golem' addressed medicine. Countering the fashion to descredit medicine he argued that although there is still much that we do not understand about the human body, science and medicine is the best available process. He used the example of plumbing. There is good plumbing and bad plumbing, just as there is good science and bad science. More, it is the business of experts to carry out this process. If there are examples of bad plumbing it does not mean that plumbing is discarded as way of solving problems, and neither must science and medicine. This does not mean that the social processes involved in producing the knowledge of plumbing ought not be analysed.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Harry Collins on Relativism in the Sociology of Science
The next PostGrad Café will take place on Wednesday 15th March at 5pm in the Senior Common Room, Glamorgan Building. In a change from the usual Café format Professor Harry Collins will discuss ‘Relativism in the Sociology of Science’, which will be followed by questions and a general discussion. Professor Collins is the convenor of the KES (Knowledge, Expertise, Science) research group and a past president of the Society for Social Studies of Science. The author of the bestselling ‘Golem’ series, in 2004 he published ‘Gravity’s Shadow: the search for gravitational waves’. It might be useful to read his introductions to the Sociology of Science and the ‘Science Wars’, both of which can be found on his webpage.
We look forward to seeing you there. As usual there will be snacks, soft drinks, wine and a friendly atmosphere.
Please note that the next PostGrad Café will be a postgrad discussion on the subject of relativism, to be held on Wednesday 29th March. If you would like to present a short discussion paper in an informal environment, please contact one of the PostGrad Café Team.
The PostGrad Café Team
Bambo, Jamie, Mark and Andrew
We look forward to seeing you there. As usual there will be snacks, soft drinks, wine and a friendly atmosphere.
Please note that the next PostGrad Café will be a postgrad discussion on the subject of relativism, to be held on Wednesday 29th March. If you would like to present a short discussion paper in an informal environment, please contact one of the PostGrad Café Team.
The PostGrad Café Team
Bambo, Jamie, Mark and Andrew
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
PostGrad Café Report – 22nd February
February’s PostGrad Café heard presentations from Karen Chalk and Andrew McKechnie, both CPLAN PhD students. The Café was well attended, with representatives from the Schools of Social Sciences, City and Regional Planning and Psychology.
Karen, in the second year of her research, discussed the ACORN (A Classification of Residential Neighbourhoods) categories of consumer classification. These divide the population into fifty-seven types, seventeen groups and five categories. The five categories are labelled; Wealthy Achievers, Urban Prosperity, Comfortably Off, Moderate Means and Hard-Pressed. Karen presented the Café with an analysis of the text and images that accompany the ACORN user-guide, describing how the rich description that accompanies the first three categories sits in contrast to the functional descriptions of the last two. A similar pattern can be found in the visual representations which order the categories into a hierarchy. The three categories arranged at the top (in descending order; Wealthy Achievers, Urban Prosperity and Comfortably Off) all present male-female relationships engaged in smiling face-to-face exchange, accompanied by visual symbols of wealth. The pictures representing the bottom two categories – the Moderate Means and the Hard-Pressed – show groups of older women accompanied by images of tower blocks and terraced housing.
Karen asked if the kind of consumer categorisation and classification offered by ACORN would resulting in the ‘sorting out’ of problematic areas, not by solving the problems but by filtering the dataset to exclude these neighbourhoods from awareness of those making decisions. At the moment only a very small number of public bodies use ACORN, but increased public sector use is a business aim of the company that produces ACORN. If nothing else, the invitation that ACORN extends to ‘read up on your neighbours’ is an e-updating of class anxieties; digital curtain twitching.
Andrew, in the final year of his research, gave the Café a rich account of his research investigating the relationship that people with physical difficulties have with their dwellings. He uses the word ‘dwelling’ in preference to house, which stresses physical characteristics, and home, which stresses emotional features. By using ‘dwelling’ Andrew attempts to incorporate both ways of looking at the living space. Arguing that much work on disability and the home is ‘wheelchair reductive’, Andrew’s research participants had a wider range of major physical difficulties.
Andrew discussed the problems of gaining access, the difficulties in conducting life-history interviews with people living with major physical disabilities, and the ethical issues involved in conducting in depth interviews on emotionally important subjects. Andrew’s research is designed to build an understanding of the experience of the dwelling from the point of view of the individual. In this, it is a counterbalance to the prevailing design reductionism which seeks to solve the dwelling problems of the disabled by altering their houses to accommodate their physical problems.
The next PostGrad Café, on the topic of relativism in the social sciences, will be in a special format of two parts. The first part will be a presentation and discussion with a senior academic to be held on Wednesday the 15th March. The second part will be a series of student presentations on the subject of relativism to be held on Wednesday 29th March. If you would like to present a short, informal paper on the subject of relativism, please contact any of the PostGrad Café Team. Further details coming soon.
Karen, in the second year of her research, discussed the ACORN (A Classification of Residential Neighbourhoods) categories of consumer classification. These divide the population into fifty-seven types, seventeen groups and five categories. The five categories are labelled; Wealthy Achievers, Urban Prosperity, Comfortably Off, Moderate Means and Hard-Pressed. Karen presented the Café with an analysis of the text and images that accompany the ACORN user-guide, describing how the rich description that accompanies the first three categories sits in contrast to the functional descriptions of the last two. A similar pattern can be found in the visual representations which order the categories into a hierarchy. The three categories arranged at the top (in descending order; Wealthy Achievers, Urban Prosperity and Comfortably Off) all present male-female relationships engaged in smiling face-to-face exchange, accompanied by visual symbols of wealth. The pictures representing the bottom two categories – the Moderate Means and the Hard-Pressed – show groups of older women accompanied by images of tower blocks and terraced housing.
Karen asked if the kind of consumer categorisation and classification offered by ACORN would resulting in the ‘sorting out’ of problematic areas, not by solving the problems but by filtering the dataset to exclude these neighbourhoods from awareness of those making decisions. At the moment only a very small number of public bodies use ACORN, but increased public sector use is a business aim of the company that produces ACORN. If nothing else, the invitation that ACORN extends to ‘read up on your neighbours’ is an e-updating of class anxieties; digital curtain twitching.
Andrew, in the final year of his research, gave the Café a rich account of his research investigating the relationship that people with physical difficulties have with their dwellings. He uses the word ‘dwelling’ in preference to house, which stresses physical characteristics, and home, which stresses emotional features. By using ‘dwelling’ Andrew attempts to incorporate both ways of looking at the living space. Arguing that much work on disability and the home is ‘wheelchair reductive’, Andrew’s research participants had a wider range of major physical difficulties.
Andrew discussed the problems of gaining access, the difficulties in conducting life-history interviews with people living with major physical disabilities, and the ethical issues involved in conducting in depth interviews on emotionally important subjects. Andrew’s research is designed to build an understanding of the experience of the dwelling from the point of view of the individual. In this, it is a counterbalance to the prevailing design reductionism which seeks to solve the dwelling problems of the disabled by altering their houses to accommodate their physical problems.
The next PostGrad Café, on the topic of relativism in the social sciences, will be in a special format of two parts. The first part will be a presentation and discussion with a senior academic to be held on Wednesday the 15th March. The second part will be a series of student presentations on the subject of relativism to be held on Wednesday 29th March. If you would like to present a short, informal paper on the subject of relativism, please contact any of the PostGrad Café Team. Further details coming soon.
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