Modern historical biblical criticism, while having many strengths, often operates under the pretensions of objectivity, as if such scholarship were neutral and disinterested. Examining the history and roots of modern biblical scholarship shows that such objectivity is elusive, and was never intended by the method’s earliest practitioners. Building upon his earlier work in Three Skeptics and the Bible and Theology, Politics, and Exegesis, Morrow continues this historical investigation into the political and philosophical roots of modern biblical criticism in Pretensions of Objectivity, in the hope of developing a criticism of biblical criticism and of making space for theological exegesis.

This book explores the evolving nature of objectivity in the history of science and its implications for science education. It is generally considered that objectivity, certainty, truth, universality, the scientific method and the accumulation of experimental data characterize both science and science education. Such universal values associated with science may be challenged while studying controversies in their original historical context. The scientific enterprise is not characterized by objectivity or the scientific method, but rather controversies, alternative interpretations of data, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Although objectivity is not synonymous with truth or certainty, it has eclipsed other epistemic virtues and to be objective is often used as a synonym for scientific. Recent scholarship in history and philosophy of science has shown that it is not the experimental data (Baconian orgy of quantification) but rather the diversity / plurality in a scientific discipline that contributes toward understanding objectivity. History of science shows that objectivity and subjectivity can be considered as the two poles of a continuum and this dualism leads to a conflict in understanding the evolving nature of objectivity. The history of objectivity is nothing less than the history of science itself and the evolving and varying forms of objectivity does not mean that one replaced the other in a sequence but rather each form supplements the others. This book is remarkable for its insistence that the philosophy of science, and in particular that discipline’s analysis of objectivity as the supposed hallmark of the scientific method, is of direct value to teachers of science. Meticulously, yet in a most readable way, Mansoor Niaz looks at the way objectivity has been dealt with over the years in influential educational journals and in textbooks; it’s fascinating how certain perspectives fade, while basic questions show no sign of going away. There are few books that take both philosophy and education seriously – this one does! Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, chemist, writer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

Using postmodern theory, The Practice of Quixotism explores eighteenth-century women's texts that use quixote narratives, which typically demand that individuals purge their minds of internalized fictions to insist instead that the reality we encounter is inevitably mediated by the texts we have read.

Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises. In Objectivity, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison chart the emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences — and show how the concept differs from alternatives, truth-to-nature and trained judgment. This is a story of lofty epistemic ideals fused with workaday practices in the making of scientific images. From the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, the images that reveal the deepest commitments of the empirical sciences — from anatomy to crystallography — are those featured in scientific atlases: the compendia that teach practitioners of a discipline what is worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images define the working objects of the sciences of the eye: snowflakes, galaxies, skeletons, even elementary particles. Galison and Daston use atlas images to uncover a hidden history of scientific objectivity and its rivals. Whether an atlas maker idealizes an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth-to-nature or refuses to erase even the most incidental detail in the name of objectivity or highlights patterns in the name of trained judgment is a decision enforced by an ethos as well as by an epistemology. As Daston and Galison argue, atlases shape the subjects as well as the objects of science. To pursue objectivity — or truth-to-nature or trained judgment — is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge. Moreover, the very point at which they visibly converge is in the very act of seeing not as a separate individual but as a member of a particular scientific community. Embedded in the atlas image, therefore, are the traces of consequential choices about knowledge, persona, and collective sight. Objectivity is a book addressed to any one interested in the elusive and crucial notion of objectivity — and in what it means to peer into the world scientifically.

A user’s guide to economic, political, social and cultural collapse. In the face of political impotence, resource depletion, and catastrophic climate change, many of us have become reconciled to an uncertain future. However, popular perception of how this future might actually unfold varies wildly from "a severe and prolonged recession," to James Howard Kunstler's "long emergency," to the complete breakdown of civilization. In The Five Stages of Collapse , Dmitry Orlov posits a taxonomy of collapse, offering a surprisingly optimistic perspective on surviving the sweeping changes of the day with health and sanity intact. Arguing that it is during periods of disruption and extreme uncertainty that broad cultural change becomes possible, Orlov steers the reader through the challenges of financial, commercial, and political collapse. He suggests that if the first three stages are met with the appropriate responses, further breakdown may be arrested before the extremes of social and cultural collapse are reached. Drawing on a detailed examination of post-collapse societies, including the Somali people of Africa, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, and even the Russian mafia, The Five Stages of Collapse describes successful adaptations in areas such as finance, self-governance, and social and cultural organization. These fascinating case studies provide a unique perspective on the characteristics that determine highly resilient communities. Shot through with Orlov's trademark dark humor, this is an invaluable toolkit for creating workable post-collapse solutions. Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad, Russia, and immigrated to the United States. He is the author of Reinventing Collapse and maintains the phenomenally popular blog Club Orlov.

Bringing sophisticated philosophy to bear on real-life historiography, Values, Objectivity, and Explanation in Historiography rekindles and invigorates the debate on two perennials in the theory and methodology of history. One is the tension between historians' values and the ideal—or illusion—of objective historiography. The other is historical explanation. The point of departure for the treatment of values and objectivity is an exceptionally heated debate on Cold War historiography in Denmark, involving not only historians but also the political parties, the national newspapers, and the courts. The in-depth analysis that follows concludes that historians can produce accounts that deserve the label "objective," even though their descriptions are tinged by ineluctable epistemic instability. A separate chapter dissects the postmodern notion of situated truths. The second part of the book proffers a new take on historical explanation. It is based on the notion of the ideal explanatory text, which allows for not only causal—including intentional—but also nomological, structural, and functional explanations. The approach, which can accommodate narrative explanations driven by causal plots, is ecumenical but not all-encompassing. Emergent social properties and supernatural entities are excluded from the ideal explanatory text, making scientific historiography methodologically individualistic—albeit with room for explanations at higher levels when pragmatically justified—and atheist. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative License.