1) For those who aren't quite ready to relativize their defenses against
self-delusion, a reasonable but somewhat more conservative position is
developed in the writings of Sandra Harding, a philosopher of science who
takes the pragmatic post-positivism of Rorty and adds the positionality
arguments of feminist theory to make a very sensible floating platform for
reason in the sea of infinite semiotic possibilities.
2) David wonders if model-centered methods such as those emerging in fields
like chaos theory and artificial life, where, as in mathematics, the
"phenomena" to be studied are those generated by the models themselves, may
not be more susceptible to self-delusions than the traditional empirical
sciences. Many old-line scientists probably think so. But, truth be told, a
Latourian analysis of the empirical methods would show them to not be so
different in generating the phenomena they study. Changes is paradigms are
not just changes in basic theoretical assumptions; they are changes in the
meta-level perspectives that define what counts as a theory, what counts as
science, what is worth studying, as well as how. JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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