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We have never been modern
Abstract
What makes us modern? This is a classic question in philosophy as well as in political science. However it is often raised without including science and technology in its definition. The argument of this book is that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology. This division allows the formidable expansion of the Western empires. However it has become more and more difficult to maintain this distance between science and politics. Hence the postmodern predicament - the feeling that the modern stance is no longer acceptable but that there is no alternative. The solution, advances one of France's leading sociologists of science, is to realize that we have never been modern to begin with. The comparative anthropology this text provides reintroduces science to the fabric of daily life and aims to make us compatible both with our past and with other cultures wrongly called pre-modern.
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Citations
Cited by
Wynter, S. (2003) · CR: The New Centennial Review · doi:10.1353/ncr.2004.0015 · Cited by 5,753
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998) · Analysis · doi:10.1093/analys/58.1.7 · Cited by 6,333
The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure
Larkin, B. (2013) · Annual Review of Anthropology · doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155522 · Cited by 4,095
Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces
Star, S. L., & Ruhleder, K. (1996) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.7.1.111 · Cited by 3,238
(2006) · Cited by 2,256
Metadata
- Venue
- Choice Reviews Online
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 1994-05-01
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 09
- Pages
- 31-4888-31-4888
- ISSN
- 0009-4978 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-8253
- OpenAlex
- W1505563434
- Cited by
- 9,294
- References
- 0
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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