Science and Liberalism
This course was available in the past and may be presented again as part of the Open Enrollment curriculum.
In the era of "post-truth" it has become common to link a crisis of scientific authority with a crisis of liberalism. Democracies around the world are under threat, this reasoning goes, in part because of an attack on scientific truth. But what does liberalism - as political culture and as a form of governance - need (or want) from science? Depending where you look, the answer might appear to be facts, truth, a model 'public sphere,' an ethic of objectivity, tactics for managing risk and uncertainty, or technologies of population management (to name a few). This course takes a multi-disciplinary perspective to explore the complex historical relationship between science and liberalism in the modern era. Authors include Karl Popper, Max Weber, Steven Shapin, Deborah Coen, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Feyerabend.