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SUMMARY:Realism and technocracy: a working hypothesis - Mazviita Chirimuut
 a (University of Edinburgh)
DTSTART:20230308T130000Z
DTEND:20230308T143000Z
UID:TALK196330@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jacob Stegenga
DESCRIPTION:The victory of realism over idealism at the start of the twent
 ieth century\, and of scientific realism over logical empiricism and pragm
 atism in the mid twentieth century\, is a striking phenomenon that calls f
 or historical explanation. In this talk I propose an externalist account\,
  looking at the social and political reasons why realism became attractive
  to philosophers active in the USA\, rather than considering the internal 
 factors – the merits of the arguments in favour of realism. Firstly\, I 
 will look at the agenda of Roy Wood Sellars' _critical realism_ which was 
 not narrowly theoretical\, but very much related to his concerns for the d
 evelopment of American society post WW1\, as expressed in _The Next Steps 
 in Democracy_ (1916) and _Next Steps in Religion_ (1918). In the second pa
 rt of the talk\, I discuss the significance of technocracy in America\, po
 st WW2 – not only the increasing influence of scientists and engineers i
 n government\, but also the diffusion of the view that social issues are b
 est addressed by scientific\, technical means. Counter-cultural critics of
  technocracy\, such as Theodore Roszak (1969) claimed that a 'scientific w
 orld-view' provided an 'ideology' for this system of governance. We will s
 ee that R.W. Sellars and his son Wilfrid Sellars\, himself a key proponent
  of scientific realism\, were explicitly involved in the task of building 
 a scientific world-view\, but with political goals that were probably not 
 realised by the post-war establishment.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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