Mediation of Knowledge
Code
711011055
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Ciências da Comunicação
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Fernando Cascais
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
By the end of the course, it is expected that students
a) Have acquired a knowledge of the epistemological, hermeneutic, sociological and communicational approaches that aim at mediating science and the other spheres pf knowledge and activity;
b) Understand of the fundamental debates and controversies that have been risen by modern science from the standpoint of science communication;
c) Understand of the historical and cognitive problemization of the relationship between natual-scientif knowledge and social-scientific knowledge;
d) Understand the scope and role of communication science in the background of the relationship between the natural sciences and the social and human sciences;
e) Master the theoretical and practical tools of science communication;
f) Develop na ability for critical reasoning through applying the acquired tools and skills to case studies;
g) Have developed an ability in analytical and synthetical reasoning;
h) Have acquired an ability in autonomous learning, according to parameters of motivation to excellence.
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
1 Epistemology
1.1. The distinction between doxa and episteme, from Plato to Bacon and Descartes to Bachelard
1.2.Continuism e descontinuism. Progress and the scientific revolutions: Koyré, Kuhn, Foucault
1.3.Limits of the total formalization of scientific language: L. Wittgenstein
1.4.The Project of the unity of the sciences and its criticism
1.5.The boundaries and limits of Epistemology: Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Rorty
2.Hermeneutics and rethorics of science and deconstructionism
2.1.The quarrels of method (Methodenstreit): Wilhelm Dilthey
2.2.The critics of method: Hans-Georg Gadamer
2.3.The overcoming of the quarrels of method: The communicational paradigm of Jürgen Habermas and Carl Otto Apel
2.4.The emergent paradigm according to Boaventura de Sousa Santos
3.The sociology of science
3.1.From the founding positivism of Auguste Comte to Max Weber
3.2.The sociology of science from Robert K. Merton to Pierre Bourdieu
3.3.The strong programme of the sociology of science
3.4.The laboratory: Bruno Latour, Karin Knorr-Cetina
3.5.Actor-network theory teoria: John Law
3.6.Risk society: Ulrich Beck, Michel Foucault
3.7.Gender, identity and science: Donna Haraway
4.The ethics of science and technology
4.1.Tecnoscience and the ethics for the technological age: Technoethics, ecoethics, bioethics
4.2.The imperative of responsibility: Hans Jonas. The precautionary principle.
4.3.Animal rights: Peter Singer
4.4.The bioethical paradigm of Gilbert Hottois
5.The public communication of science
5.1.Vulgarization, science broadcasting, scientific culture
5.2.The linear O model of the public understanding of science (Royal Society)
5.3.The crisis of the linear model. Boundary work: Ulrike Felt, Thomas Gyerin
5.4.The interaction model and the generalized mediation of knowledge
5.5.The science wars and beyond.
Bibliography
CASCAIS, António Fernando (2007), A mediação dos saberes no pós-guerra das ciências, Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, nº 38 - Mediação dos Saberes, pp. 91-109;
CASCAIS, António Fernando (2005), A ciência e as suas retóricas, Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, nº 36 - Comover e convencer, pp. 129-142;
SANTOS, Boaventura de Sousa (1999), Um discurso sobre as ciências. Porto: Edições Afrontamento;
BLEICHER, Josef (1992), Hermenêutica contemporânea. Lisboa: Edições 70;
HEKMAN, Susan J. (1990), Hermenêutica e sociologia do conhecimento. Lisboa: Edições 70.
Teaching method
Oral presentation (60%), textual analysis and discussion of empirical cases (40%).
Evaluation method
The evaluation consists of a written test that has a 100% ponderation on the final course classification. Student assiduity will not be taken in consideration in what concerns the courses final classification. An alternative written exam will be made, which may exceptionally take the form of an oral test.