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Article: Scandalizing science?(Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth and the Human)(Book review)
- Article from:
- Historical Methods
- Article date:
- September 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Barbara Herrnstein Smith. Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth and the Human. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
Scandals, Scandals
The main title of Barbara Herrnstein Smith's Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth and the Human is intriguing. Although it sounds somewhat reminiscent of a nineteenth-century pornographic novel, it actually refers to two "Big Issues" in the philosophy of science. One is the Kantian scandal of philosophy--its inability to demonstrate the possibility of knowledge about the external world and to provide secure grounds for a claim to rationality. Orthodox epistemology, or positivism, has failed to rebut Pyrrhonian ...