Call for Papers "The Social Sciences and Democracy: A Philosophy of Science Perspective" International Congress Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University Ghent (Belgium) 28-30 September 2006
What is the relation between (the evolution of) the social sciences and democracy? Trying to answer this question, we want to pay attention to methodological, historical and political issues in the epistemological and institutional organisation of the social sciences. The changing historical background against which social scientific disciplines have developed the nation-state, the Cold War, globalisation should be taken into account when discussing (possible) future directions for the social sciences. There are political questions in abundance: should democracies value the social sciences by economic, political or scientific criteria? What does a democratic science policy look like? Which institutional organisation of the sciences is the most adequate in a democracy? Can/should proposals for democratisation within scientific institutions and networks learn from our political and social institutions, and/or vice versa? Leaving behind historical amnesia and political inertia, philosophical and methodological questions concerning the social sciences and democracy might shift: How to understand the plurality of theories, methodologies and forms of explanation? How to relate and move among different perspectives? How to deal with the coexistence of orthodox and heterodox theories; can we clarify their relation by employing democratic theory e.g., the relation between a majority and minorities? How can different epistemic and non-epistemic interests be served by the social scientific disciplines? Can we draw fruitful parallels between models of science and models of democracy? We aim at a programme in which the historical, political and epistemological questions are approached in different ways referring to a wide range of (social) sciences, by philosophers of the social sciences, by historians and sociologists of science, and by others having an interest in the topics of the congress. Possible topics - The socio-political context of the social sciences in the past, present and future: interactions with the nation-state, the Cold War and globalisation. - Truth and democracy: (a)symmetries between political theory and philosophy of science. - Models of science = models of democracy = models of rationality. - Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in social science (can they be understood in terms of majority and minorities in democratic theory - and the Westminster vs. consensus model of democracy?). - Consensus vs. dissensus in social scientific disciplines and in democracy. - The ends, means and/or usefulness of the social sciences in democracies. - Social scientific knowledge produced by universities, consultancy firms, think tanks, governmental agencies, etc: a comparison. - The democratisation of science, a democratic science policy (republican, cosmopolitan, pluralist, etc). - Interdisciplinarity, the division of labour between disciplines, monopolies, oligopolies, etc. - Scientific pluralism, unity vs. disunity of the social sciences. - Forms of pluralism: explanatory, theoretical, methodological, metaphysical, value, cultural, pluralism. More details on the topics can be found on the website: http://logica.ugent.be/SSD/ Abstracts should be no longer than 1000 words. Please send a Word- or PDF-file to <[email protected]>. Abstracts received will be acknowledged within ten days by email. Authors will be informed on acceptance or rejection as soon as possible and not later than 30 April 2006. Deadline for abstracts is 31 March 2006. Keynote speakers are: Patrick Baert (University of Cambridge) James Bohman (Saint Louis University) Steve Fuller (University of Warwick) Sandra Harding (UCLA) Philip Mirowski (University of Notre Dame) Stephen Turner (University of South Florida) Contact: Jeroen Van Bouwel Blandijnberg 2 B-9000 Gent Belgium Phone: ++32 9 264 39 79 Fax: ++32 9 264 41 87 Email: [email protected] Web: http://logica.ugent.be/SSD/ _________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org/ Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://agd.polylog.org/cal/
