The jacket is shelf worn and slightly creased on the top and bottom edges. The spine edges of the cover are bumped, otherwise the cover is in great condition. Binding is tight. Ink signature from the previous owner on the front end page leaf, otherwise all other pages are clean and unmarked.

Seller Inventory # 1151040

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Bibliographic Details

Title

Value-Free Science?: Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Publication Date

1991

Language

English

ISBN 10

067493170X

ISBN 13

9780674931701

Binding

Hard cover

Condition

Good

Dust Jacket Condition

Good

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About this title

Synopsis

Why have scientists shied away from politics, or defended their work as value free? How has the ideal of neutrality come to dominate the world of science? These are some of the central questions that Robert Proctor addresses in his study of the politics of modern science.

Value-Free Science? emphasizes the importance of understanding the political origins and impact of scientific ideas. Proctor lucidly demonstrates how value-neutrality is a reaction to larger political developments, including the use of science by government and industry, the specialization of professional disciplines, and the efforts to stifle intellectual freedoms or to politicize the world of the academy.

The first part of the book traces the origins of value-neutrality prior to the eighteenth century. Plato and Aristotle saw contemplative thought as superior to practical action, and this separation of theory and practice is still invoked today in defense of "neutral science." In the seventeenth century the Baconian search for useful knowledge allowed a new and closer tie between theory and practice, but it also isolated moral knowledge from natural philosophy. Another version of neutrality was introduced by the mechanical conception of the universe, in which the idea of a benevolent, human-centered cosmos was replaced with a "devalorized" view of nature.

The central part of the book explores the exclusion of politics and morals with the emergence of the social sciences. Proctor highlights the case of Germany, where the ideal of value-neutrality was first articulated in modern form by social scientists seeking to attack or defend Marxism, feminism, and other social movements. He traces the rise and fall of positivist ethical and economic theory, showing that arguments for value-free science often mask concrete political maneuvers. Finally, he reviews critiques of science that have been voiced in recent debates over critical issues in agricultural science, military research, health and medicine, and biological determinism.

This provocative book will interest anyone seeking ways to reconcile the ideals of scientific freedom and social responsibility.

About the Author

Robert N. Proctor is Professor of History and, by courtesy, of Medicine, at Stanford University.

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