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Professur für Wissenschaftsforschung, ETH Zürich

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Dora Vargha at the Science Studies Colloquium

Matthias Leese at the Science Studies Colloquium

"Sternstunde Philosophie" with Michael Hagner

Latest Publications


Paul Feyerabend. Historische Wurzeln moderner Probleme

Edited by Michael Hagner and Michael Hampe with the collaboration of Hannah Kressig and Anna Morawietz

Paul Feyerabend Historische Wurzeln moderner Probleme

In the summer semester of 1985, Paul Feyerabend gives a lecture at ETH Zurich in which he argues that we can better understand many problems of the modern world if we trace them back to their historical roots in the intellectual world of ancient Greece. The predominantly scientific audience is not disappointed. In a deliberately anti-professorial performance, peppered with brilliant provocations and anecdotal digressions that reveal his profound knowledge, the enfant terrible of the philosophy of science sharpens his famous criticism of Western rationalism.

He takes particular aim at the monopoly position of scientific-technical reason with its ideas of progress, truth or objectivity, as being partly responsible for the imbalance in the world. In contrast, Feyerabend recommends an epistemological and political pluralism in order to deal with the "modern problems" of his time: the nuclear threat, the destruction of non-European civilizations, social upheaval and the looming ecological catastrophe. And today? A furious journey back to the 1980s that shows, among other things, that quite a few of yesterday's problems are still on the agenda.

Available external pagenow.

Right Wing Knowledge: Constellations between University and Politics

The sixth issue of Æther

Fake news, alternative facts, "alt-right intellectuals": the right's skewed relationship to knowledge and science has received considerable attention in recent years. But the conflicted entanglements between "right-wing" politics and knowledge are nothing new. Æther #6 deals with exemplary constellations of this relationship that lead right into the recent history of the social and natural sciences.

With contributions by Sascha Deboni, Patrick Gut, Simon Kräuchi, Emmanuelle Maciel, Anna Morawietz, Lukas Rathjen, André Semadeni, Max Stadler, Ricardo Stalder, Janosch Steuwer und Monika Wulz.

Out now: aether.ethz.ch

The series Æther aims at making the history of knowledge accessible – and at rethinking how publishing in the humanities is done. Æther #6 is available both online and in external pageprint.

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