Language, Scientific Change, and Shifting Modes of Discourse
{'Code': '08080301', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'BIO', 'LongName': 'Direct For Biological Sciences'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'DBI', 'LongName': 'Div Of Biological Infrastructure'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Ronald J. Overmann', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
Thomas Kuhn, in his famous Structure of Scientific                         Revolutions, argued that the essential learning that goes on in                 science and that underlies scientific change is perceptual and                  precedes interpretation.  Dr. Bono argues that interpretation of                perception is critical as well, and one cannot understand                       interpretation unless one recognizes the crucial ties of                        individual scientists to larger communities of discourse and                    belief.  These ties may be cultural, religious, social or of some               other sort; but they are reflected in the scientist's attitudes                 toward and use of language in the description and interpretation                of these perceptions.  This theory, if correct, more clearly                    shows how so-called external factors like culture and religion                  directly affect the development of science.  If successful,                     therefore, this study promises to have a very significant impact                on the history and philosophy of science.                                                                                                                            Like Kuhn, Dr. Bono is turning to the paradigm case of                     scientific change, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th               centuries, to see how changes in language and discourse affected                science.  He seeks to relate changes in scientific thought from                 about 1500 to 1670 to the emergence of new assumptions and                      practices for interpreting language, texts, and nature.  These                  new principles of language emerged, Dr. Bono argues, in response                to new understandings of the relationship between the "Word of                  God" and the "Languages of Man" fostered by Renaissance Humanism,               Neoplatonism and magic, and both the reformed and radical                       religions of Protestantism.  In other words, he argues that the                 new humanistic studies of the Renaissance and new challenges to                 the doctrinal views of the Church in the Reformation radically                  altered the attitudes of educated laymen towards the status of                  language.  The received writings from the ancients could no                     longer be considered absolute but rather are contingent and must                be compared to one's own observation.  It was this attitude which               fostered the Scientific Revolution.                                                                                                                                  In order to demonstrate the relationship between science and               changes in modes of discourse and interpretation, Dr. Bono will                 try 1) to situate these new "theories" of language within their                 wider cultural and religious setting;  2) to show the                           consequences of specific assumptions about the nature of language               for the methodologies and ideas of scientists and physicians; and               3) to suggest how assumptions about language link practioners of                early modern science to non-scientific communities and their                    discourses.
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{'Code': '1353', 'Text': 'Hist & Philosophy of SET'}
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