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Science and Technology between the World Wars

Eric Schatzberg

in Technology: Critical History of a Concept

A sustained discourse about the relationship between science and technology only emerged after World War I. This discourse drew on the nineteenth-century concept of applied science. But applied ... More

A sustained discourse about the relationship between science and technology only emerged after World War I. This discourse drew on the nineteenth-century concept of applied science. But applied science was deeply ambiguous. It could refer to a field of practical knowledge, or it could imply the applications of academic science. Before World War II, some academics, mainly in the social sciences, defined technology as applied science. Sustained discussion of the science-technology relationship first emerged in the 1930s, not from natural scientists, social scientists, or engineers, but rather from historians of science. Historians of science drew from the Continental discourse of Technik to develop their own approach to the science-technology relationship. These scholars were responding in part to Soviet Marxists who presented a materialist approach to the history of science in a famous 1931 conference session, published as Science at the Cross Roads.Less

The Link between Vocational Training and Higher Education in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany

Rita Nikolai and Christian Ebner

in The Political Economy of Collective Skill Formation

In recent years, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have adopted different strategies to increase permeability between dual vocational training and higher education. Germany relies on the ... More

In recent years, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have adopted different strategies to increase permeability between dual vocational training and higher education. Germany relies on the consideration of occupational competencies for higher education admission, while Switzerland and Austria have introduced double-qualification certificates that enable the simultaneous acquisition of a vocational degree and a higher education entrance qualification. Two points may be identified as the motivation for the reform impulse leading to the introduction of double qualifications in Switzerland and Austria. The first is the lack of attractiveness of the dual training system to most qualified young people; the second is the availability of attractive alternatives, such as the general upper secondary school system in Switzerland and the attractive full-time school-based VET options available in Austria. In Germany, the dual training system is already attractive to qualified young people; hence, there is less competition between the dual training system and other educational courses at upper secondary level.Less

From Art to Applied Science: Creating a “Semantic Void”

Eric Schatzberg

in Technology: Critical History of a Concept

As the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century gave way to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth, collaboration between artisans and men of letters strengthened, despite persistent ... More

As the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century gave way to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth, collaboration between artisans and men of letters strengthened, despite persistent aristocratic prejudice against the mechanical arts. Encouraged by Francis Bacon’s widespread influence in Britain and France, Enlightenment authors explored the relationship between natural knowledge and productive activity as expressed in terms of a discourse of art and science. Many Enlightenment authors rejected the hierarchy that placed science above art, and instead viewed the relationship in terms of mutual dependence. Yet two key changes weakened potential conceptual links between science and the mechanical arts. First, the emergence of fine arts as a new concept in the mid-eighteenth century in effect stripped aesthetic creativity from the mechanical arts. And with the rise of industrial capitalism in the late eighteenth century, industrialists, not artisans, emerged as new allies for men of science.Less

Natural Form, Mathematical Form, and Platonist Errors

Michail Peramatzis

in Priority in Aristotle's Metaphysics

Chapter 4 addresses the negative issue of what, in Aristotle's view, natural forms should not be understood as: their essence is not like that of mathematical or Platonist forms. After comparing ... More

Chapter 4 addresses the negative issue of what, in Aristotle's view, natural forms should not be understood as: their essence is not like that of mathematical or Platonist forms. After comparing mathematical with natural forms, Chapter 4 asks how to differentiate between them, and how to determine the types of matter (if any) which are essential to natural forms but not essential to mathematical entities. The contrast between the objects studied by mathematical sciences and those examined by physics suggests that, while mathematical form is essentially independent of all perceptible types of matter (collectively), natural form should not be conceived in this fashion. Not only higher‐level mathematical branches but also applied/subordinate mathematical sciences deal with abstract mathematical forms which are essentially independent of matter, while physics studies forms which are essentially non‐abstract and non‐mathematical.Less

Defining (Scientific) Direction:: Soviet Nuclear Physics and Reactor Engineering during the Cold War

Sonja D. Schmid

in Science and Technology in the Global Cold War

This chapter uses nuclear physics and reactor engineering as an example to illustrate uniquely Soviet discussion over “fundamental” and “applied” research during the Cold War. Post-Stalinist ... More

This chapter uses nuclear physics and reactor engineering as an example to illustrate uniquely Soviet discussion over “fundamental” and “applied” research during the Cold War. Post-Stalinist scientists found creative strategies around Party control that involved “boundary work” emphasizing scientific universalism. These strategies involved both a public image campaign for peaceful uses of nuclear energy (which linked abstract research agendas to concrete applications and the public good), and also the creation of organizational structures that would firmly anchor fundamental science in the country’s institutional landscape. The success of these strategies ironically reinforced a symbiotic relationship between science and the state by buttressing the rhetoric of “scientific neutrality” versus state ideology. While deeply contradictory, the rhetorical demarcation between “fundamental” and “applied” science served to materialize specific organizational arrangements, which in turn shaped the kind of research deemed appropriate, and the kinds of applications regarded desirable. This rhetorical move made it possible that both an “international” design and a uniquely “Soviet” model of nuclear power reactors found resonance among Soviet decision makers.Less

Self-Reliant Science:: The Impact of the Cold War on Science in Socialist China

Sigrid Schmalzer

in Science and Technology in the Global Cold War

This chapter traces the emergence of a set of mutually reinforcing priorities in Cold War-era Chinese science: application, native techniques, mass mobilization, and most importantly, self-reliance. ... More

This chapter traces the emergence of a set of mutually reinforcing priorities in Cold War-era Chinese science: application, native techniques, mass mobilization, and most importantly, self-reliance. These priorities had immense ideological significance for Maoism and nationalism, and carried practical weight for China as a developing country. Moreover, China's relative isolation during certain periods of the Cold War intensified the emphasis on self-reliance and related priorities. With roots in the pre-1949 revolutionary period, and crystallizing in 1958 as China departed from the Soviet model, the idea of self-reliance eclipsed the actual importance of transnational influences and produced a belief in a uniquely socialist-Chinese approach to science. Ironically it became even more sharply articulated through the international exchanges of the 1970s, as foreign scientists eager to bring home exotic epistemologies participated in the promotion of Chinese uniqueness. In a few cases at least, such claims to uniqueness went beyond shaping the way people talked about science to change the actual character of scientific knowledge produced in Cold War China.Less

Technology in the Social Sciences before World War II

Eric Schatzberg

in Technology: Critical History of a Concept

From the turn of the twentieth century until World War II, the concept of technology gradually diffused throughout the social sciences. This diffusion did not, however, lead to a cohesive ... More

From the turn of the twentieth century until World War II, the concept of technology gradually diffused throughout the social sciences. This diffusion did not, however, lead to a cohesive understanding of the term technology. As academic boundaries between the social sciences hardened, several largely independent discourses of technology emerged, primarily in economics, sociology, and anthropology. By the early 1930s, the concept of technology had largely shed its nineteenth-century meaning as the science of the industrial arts. By World War II, technology had become a general term in the social sciences that referred to the material means of production, transportation, and communication. Yet academics rarely reflected deeply on technology as a concept in social theory, continuing the historical neglect of human productive activities by elite scholars.Less

Suppression and Revival: Technology in World War II and the Cold War

Eric Schatzberg

in Technology: Critical History of a Concept

By the end of the 1930s, the concept of technology seemed on the verge of becoming a keyword in academic discourse. But during and after World War I, science became even more identified with ... More

By the end of the 1930s, the concept of technology seemed on the verge of becoming a keyword in academic discourse. But during and after World War I, science became even more identified with technological modernity, displacing the concept of technology. Ironically, in an era when modern technology drew ever more heavily on science, natural scientists and humanist intellectuals doubled down on the ideology of pure science. Yet countervailing trends during the early Cold War encouraged wider use of the concept of technology. These trends included a new economic discourse on technological innovation, critiques of technology based in Continental philosophy, and the rise of the history of technology as an academic field.Less

Impacts and Influences

Ian Shaw

in Social Work Science

Following reflections on how scientists in social work and other fields have contemplated the challenge of contributing to the application of their work, I consider four questions: 1. How should we ... More

Following reflections on how scientists in social work and other fields have contemplated the challenge of contributing to the application of their work, I consider four questions: 1. How should we think about the uses and misuses of science in social work? 2. What should we make of the demands for the impact of science? 3. Are some forms of social work science less susceptible to influence than others? 4. What is the relationship between knowing and doing in social work science? I close the chapter, and the book, with a reminder of the limits of social work science.Less

A School in Full 1995–2007

Robert McCaughey

in A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1864

This chapter focuses on the growth of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) during the years 1995–2007. It first considers the deanship of Zvi Galil and the ... More

This chapter focuses on the growth of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) during the years 1995–2007. It first considers the deanship of Zvi Galil and the improvement in computer science under his watch, along with his restoration of the chemical engineering department that was previously integrated into the Henry Krumb School of Mines, Mineral Engineering and Materials Science. It then examines the changes within the departments of mining, minerals and metallurgy and applied physics/applied mathematics, as well as the establishment of a department of biomedical engineering. It also discusses the reinvention of the industrial engineering and operations research department and the positive developments in the departments of electrical engineering and mechanical and civil engineering. Finally, it describes Galil's legacy and his departure in 2007.Less

Concluding

David Byrne

in Applying social science: The role of social research in politics, policy and practice

This chapter draws on the arguments presented in preceding chapters in developing a proposal for the proper forms and role of applied social science in the 21st century with a particular emphasis on ... More

This chapter draws on the arguments presented in preceding chapters in developing a proposal for the proper forms and role of applied social science in the 21st century with a particular emphasis on the role of knowledge in relation to present interwoven ecological and financial crises. It argues for a responsibility in terms of praxis — in effect reversing the arguments Max Weber made at the beginning of the 21st century for a distinction between the academic and political modes of practice. It examines a number of issues involved in the statement that applied social research is political.Less

The methodological foundations of applied social science

David Byrne

in Applying social science: The role of social research in politics, policy and practice

This chapter addresses ‘the methodological foundations of applied social science’. It begins with a critique of existing meta-theoretical positions through a consideration of the implications of ... More

This chapter addresses ‘the methodological foundations of applied social science’. It begins with a critique of existing meta-theoretical positions through a consideration of the implications of understanding social research practice as necessarily post-positivist, focusing in particular on the implications of realism for applied social research. It develops an account of ‘complex realism’ based on the implications of understanding the social world as composed of complex open systems. The chapter deals in summary with two opposing methodological positions which have had considerable influence in relation to formal discussions of the methodological foundations of social research. It reviews the arguments about quantity versus quality: asserts that the methodological disputes between quantitative and qualitative modes of social inquiry are always fatuous. It turns to issues surrounding knowing and acting — the content of the Greek term ‘praxis’ which is the foundation of all conceptions of critical social science, particularly but by no means exclusively as informed by the thinking of Marx.Less

Rival Ideologies of Science

in Science for All: The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Publishers and authors—including scientists—usually hoped to make money from popular science literature, but most of the authors also had deeper motivations. Some scientists felt that it was ... More

Publishers and authors—including scientists—usually hoped to make money from popular science literature, but most of the authors also had deeper motivations. Some scientists felt that it was important that the public was informed about science by people who knew what was really going on. But while scientists and science writers were genuinely enthusiastic about their subject, they had deeper reasons for wanting to promote science both to those with political and social influence, and to the public at large. By the early decades of the century, the scientific community in Britain was already highly professionalized and was expanding rapidly, especially in those areas in which science could be applied to technological development. Yet scientists still argued that the country did not provide enough support for science, in part because the governing class did not appreciate the subject. This chapter, which examines the debates about science in nineteenth-century Britain and its implications for discovery as well as religion, also discusses applied and subversive science.Less

A Lever Long Enough: Seas at one Hundred Fifty

Robert McCaughey

in A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1864

This chapter evaluates the status of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) as it celebrates its 150th anniversary. It first looks at the SEAS faculty, which increased ... More

This chapter evaluates the status of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) as it celebrates its 150th anniversary. It first looks at the SEAS faculty, which increased from thirty-eight men in 1939 to 183, including twenty-seven women, in 2013. It then considers developments that produced a transnational SEAS faculty of research-focused applied scientists, in place of the earlier all-male teaching engineers. It also compares SEAS with other engineering schools in America and its departments with their Columbia science counterparts and discusses the entrepreneurship of SEAS graduates, Columbia's emphasis on interdisciplinary and collaborative working relationships across campus(es), the current SEAS undergraduate students and alumni, and the role played by SEAS deans in its transformation. The chapter concludes by assessing the place of Columbia in New York City and the place of engineering within Columbia.Less

Practical Knowledge for All

in Science for All: The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Some of the revolutionary developments in science had immediate practical implications. And it was these applications that were most likely to catch the attention of general readers. There was some ... More

Some of the revolutionary developments in science had immediate practical implications. And it was these applications that were most likely to catch the attention of general readers. There was some involvement by academics in writing about applied science, especially in areas such as chemistry that corresponded to established university subjects. But most of the applied scientists worked in industry or in government institutions, and were less free to express themselves. As far as most readers were concerned, science and technology were indistinguishable. Popular science magazines were, in fact, devoted mostly to applied science and engineering. The subjects covered related both to everyday life, where innovations such as radio were having a huge impact, and to the wider application of science in the industries that now provided most people with their livelihood. There were more traditional interests that linked amateur observers with the realms of science: astronomy and natural history. One of the most active areas of science in the nineteenth century had been geology, which had transformed people's view of the earth's past.Less

The Institutionalizing Research University: Rise of the Scientific Tradition

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

The business school is part of the research university, a twentieth-century invention that established the research profession and professoriate and integrated the values of professional science into ... More

The business school is part of the research university, a twentieth-century invention that established the research profession and professoriate and integrated the values of professional science into higher education and in industry. The research university performed two new values and purposes, knowledge discovery and occupational training, in addition to the university's traditional function of cultural preservation. In and through the research university, the business school and the college acquired professional status that exceeded that of the previous sole profession, the ministry. Both institutions, and the research university in general, organized under the value of specialization and the value-creating synergy between basic science and applied science. Science was professionalized in the technical institute and the graduate school, as exemplified by the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, respectively. This chapter discusses the history of the research university and the rise of the scientific tradition. It looks at the classical college, the scientific school, and University Extension.Less

Uneven Ascent 1980–1994

Robert McCaughey

in A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1864

This chapter examines developments at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) during the years 1980–1994. The departure in 1980 of William J. McGill as Columbia ... More

This chapter examines developments at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) during the years 1980–1994. The departure in 1980 of William J. McGill as Columbia president marked the end of a crucial turnaround chapter in the school's history. His successor was Michael I. Sovern, the first Jew to become president of Columbia. This chapter first considers the changes implemented at SEAS's Department of Computer Science before discussing Columbia's response to the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act. It then evaluates the deanships of Robert A. Gross and David H. Auston, efforts to establish bioengineering at Columbia on a firmer foundation, and the establishment of the Morris A. Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research. It also discusses the hiring of more women in the engineering faculty and the increase in SEAS admissions.Less

The Private Argument between Chester Barnard and Herbert Simon about the Boundaries of Management Science

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

This chapter examines Chester Barnard's epistemology for a management science and his argument with Herbert Simon, founder of organization science. Simon separated research from experience, thus ... More

This chapter examines Chester Barnard's epistemology for a management science and his argument with Herbert Simon, founder of organization science. Simon separated research from experience, thus establishing the boundaries between management science and practice. Instead of drawing from cases to develop the new science's governing principles, however, he based his work mainly on one text and his experience with it: Barnard's The Functions of the Executive. According to Barnard's epistemology of applied social science, each new science demarcates a new field that is different from ordinary action. Although Simon operated within these parameters, Barnard developed a science that explained parameter-setting per se. Barnard corresponded extensively with Simon, who revised his classic work, Administrative Behavior (1947). Barnard supported Simon's research because he thought that Simon rationalized away the hard problems at the heart of an applied social science. Barnard, however, never published his own foundational document that he began drafting in 1940.Less