Synopses & Reviews
This book tells the story of how the very idea of two cultures, the so-called divorce between science and the humanities, was a creation of the modern world-system that was consolidated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by the establishment of the faculties and dis, ci, plines of the modern university system.
The contributors, working from a common research framework, trace the divorce of facts and values-- indivisible within medieval Europe's structures of knowledge--as part of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This led to a polarization between universalist science (destined to become dominant as the empirical mode of arriving at truth) and the particularist humanities (defending its legitimacy as an alternative, more empathetic mode of knowing) and finally to the creation of the social sciences as an uneasy intermediary in this episte, mological debate.
The book addresses the contemporary attempts to overcome the divi, sion between the two cultures that emerge from science, femi, nism, race and ethnic studies, cultural studies, and ecology, ending with an analysis of the culture wars and the science wars.
Synopsis
This book tells the story of how the very idea of two cultures-the so-called divorce between science and the humanities-was a creation of the modern world-system. The contributors, working from a common research framework, trace the divorce of "facts" and "values" as part of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This led to a polarization between universalist "science" and the particularist "humanities" and finally to the creation of the social sciences as an uneasy intermediary in this epistemological debate. The book addresses the contemporary attempts to overcome the division between the two cultures that emerge from science, feminism, race and ethnic studies, cultural studies, and ecology, ending with an analysis of the culture wars and the science wars. Contributors: Volkan Aytar, Ay, se Betul Celik, Mauro Di Meglio, Mark Frezzo, Ho-fung Hung, Biray Kolloupglu K3/4rl3/4, Agustin Lao- Montes, Eric Mielants, Boris Stremlin, Sunaryo, Norihisa Yamashita, Deniz Yukeseker.