Cultural Collisions: Postmodern Technoscience - Hardcover

Sassower, Raphael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415911095 ISBN 13: 9780415911092

Publisher: Routledge, 1995

Synopsis

In Cultural Collisions Raphael Sassower brings postmodernism face to face with technoscience and considers the viability of public works, such as the Superconducting Supercollider, in a postmodern age. Contending that technoscientific projects are contingent upon economic and political support, and not simply upon their scientific feasibility, Sassower illuminates the cultural context of postmodern technoscience vis-a-vis an examination of postmodernism and the philosophy of late 20th century science.

About this title

About the Author

Raphael Sassower is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He is the author of Knowledge Without Expertise, Narrative Experiments, and co-editor of Prescriptions.

Reviews

Building on his Knowledge Without Expertise (SUNY Pr., 1993), philosophy professor Sassower pleads for an intellectual dialog between various political-cultural-scientific worldviews on the grounds that they are in fact covering the same intellectual territory. Any intellecutally consistent worldview has to be accepted as valid up to a point. The role of philosophy today is to identify what that point is and to let the opposing worldviews come into dialog through interpretation as opposed to confrontation. Claiming that he is exploring science's relationship to the other forms of knowledge, Sassower is, at the same time, arguing for the validity of postmodern philosophy as a legitmate form of philosophical pursuit. Couple this with his occasionally convoluted prose, and this book is not likely to be very well received in the popular market even though Sassower's interpretation of the ideas of Karl Popper and feminist philosophy and his exploration of technoscience and art are thought-provoking. Recommended for academic philosophy collections.
Eric D. Albright, Galter Health Sciences Lib., Northwestern Univ., Chicago
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415911095
• ISBN 13: 9780415911092
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 170