STS200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Science Advances, Techne
7 Dec 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Myth and foraging no mastery required, because kinship is sufficient: agriculture makes us think that the world must be controlled technologically. Recalcitrance requires control: writing makes us think that the world can be understood scientifically. Nature is logical once you go past how it looks intellectual mastery is possible. It is not inherent in the human spirit it is rather an anthropologically and historically contingent social construction. The classical west everyone wants to see the world scientifically: greeks. Informs our understanding to this day: aristotle says that all men by nature desire to be like the greeks (the usual story). He"s saying: science advances incrementally over time, myth is an attempt to know scientifically, natural philosophy abstract, static sceptical (but who said anything about useful?, thales everything is water. Then he did that thing with monopolizing the olive presses to prove he was useful.
