No Pankration–had to look it up, actually. I’ve got a degree black belt in taekwondo, but mostly I do hapkido these days.

This is the kind of information I like to see and read. Do you plan on doing more work like this, or was this a one-off?

BTW, your Twitter profile mentions you practice martial arts, but there’s no such information here on your blog. Pankration, perhaps?

gz

“phenomena can be subordinated because those who are interested in them are themselves subordinate, left behind by revolutionary physics.”

This strikes me as very astute. Even art’s presentation to itself seems to have accepted this subordinate role: Art becomes ‘social comment’ or ‘societies mirror’ – but not effective (or mobilised) in the way we generally find science to be. Jung (as an ‘arch-modern’) gave this an interesting turn. It could almost be said that he regarded the practice of art as a symptom! Whenever he wrote of his famous ‘Red Book’, he would always emphasise that he was painting and writing within a practice of science – not art. Art cast a shadow for him (a fetish) which he couldn’t accept for himself. (here I am analysing Jung!)

This looks to me very much like Stengers’ critique of psychoanalysis: the assumption that one practice can somehow be obligated, and made subordinate, by another. If that case can be proven, then let it be, but if not, we can only describe it as an act of war.

This, I think, is why she emphasises binaries (indeed multiplicities) so strongly. She encourages us to make distinctions (to see differences) at every turn so as to allow practices to emerge within a recognised ecology. That ‘not all are equal’ speaks of difference and movement (I think!?)– rather than a hierarchy – which I believe she would oppose. ‘Worth’ (if that’s the right word) becomes fluid. We might perceive a given practice as ‘less equal’ (subordinate and rejected) only to find it re-emerging in the way we address ourselves to a new question. (The rejected stone!)

Well, just initial thoughts!

In my own reading of Waddell’s exploration of the role of pathos in scientific discourse, he seems to go beyond simply reminding scientists to “pay attention” to the role of pathos and ethos. He goes so far as to caution us that too heavy a reliance on logos at the expense of pathos may actually rob us of the ability to make wise decisions since we would be lacking the moral compass that emotions can provide us.

In comparing the testimonies given by Dr. David Nathan, the Chief of Hemotology and Oncology at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and George Wald, a professor of biology at Harvard, Waddell points out that there wasn’t much of a contest between Dr. Nathan’s emotional appeal of suffering children with names and faces and Wald’s “three billion years of evolution.” Emotional appeals have also been part of the debate on stem cell research, in which the anti-stem cell advocates use terms such as “pre-born children” and “snow-flake babies” to refer to frozen embryos left over from fertility treatments, while the pro-stem cell advocates describe embryonic stem cells in almost magical terms, citing the “almost unlimited potential” of these cells. We can come up with multiple instances in science today in which pathos and ethos are prominent players, while the scientists using these rhetorical tools are (mostly) oblivious to the fact they are using them.

I think that while rhetorical scholars may not need to be reminded of the profoundly rhetorical nature of science, scientists themselves could use an occasional refresher course.

Thanks for unpacking #3. Some really smart, interesting points you’re making…

I can unpack Disciplinary Project 3, though:
DiscProj 3A This is just an explicit shift away from the late 80s & 90s tendency in our field (that continues somewhat to the present) to justify studying science because it’s the coolest thing out there–either A) because it’s discovering the realtruths out there, or b) because scientists are truly great rhetors. My research focuses on the medical-industrial complex. As such, it’s overtly critical.

DiscProj 3B I accept Latour’s argument from We have never been modern that postmodernity just accepts modernity’s binaries and merely reverses which side gets privileged. I hope to contribute to a model of inquiry that truly erases binaries.

DiscProj 3C Here I’m riffing on Collins, H., & Evans, R. (2002). The Third Wave of Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience. Social Studies of Science, 32(2), 235-296. They argue that STS needs to move away from a solely critical project towards one that actually contributes to the ways in which science and science-policy are developed.

If you let me know what I’ve renumbered 4 as, I’d be happy to take a whack at unpacking that too– though I’d probably save that for an actual blog post as you suggest.