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Wild Knowledge Science, Language, and Social Life in a Fragile Environment Will Wright |
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"Science is an incoherent form of knowledge, and, despite technical proficiency, it 'is conceptually wrong, wrong about nature, and wrong about knowledge' (p. 3). With this radical premise, Will Wright's intentions in this book are to challenge the validity of the so-called instrumental successes of scientific technologies, to demonstrate the incoherence and inadequacy of science, and to establish new criteria for evaluating the legitimacy of knowledge claims. Wright clearly makes a contribution in taking the steps to turn what has been treated as a liability for social theories of science and knowledge—issues of reflexivity, language, and sustainability—into criteria for the coherence of knowledge." —Contemporary Sociology "Wright, a Berkeley-trained sociologist of medicine, proposes the intriguing idea of a 'sustainable theory of rationality.' Such a theory requires that we adopt an ecological (or 'wild') conception of knowledge, which is, in turn, rooted in an account of language that makes reference to its own enabling conditions-rather than distancing itself from them, as Wright believes scientific language does with its notion of 'objective' reference." —International Studies in Philosophy "This book is closely and beautifully argued. It is an exciting book because his revolutionary ideas are lucidly set forth and make such liberating good sense." —Exceptional Human Experience 240 pages | 1992 |
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$22.50 paper