Science, Technology and Human Experience

The course investigates epistemological, ethical, existential, and social aspects of the relationship between science and technology on the one hand, and society and lived world on the other. Drawing on concrete examples from biology, neuroscience, and psychiatry, the course tries to shed light on the opportunities and dangers that the close entanglement of society, science, and technology may have on our understanding of ourselves, the others, and the world.

The aim of the course is to develop students’ knowledge of:
- role of science and technology in contemporary society, and epistemic, ethical, and existential questions pertaining to the “scientification” of society;
- two faces of science – cognitive (science as an epistemic endeavor) and sociohistorical (science as a social endeavor) –, and their mutual interrelations;
- relation between the “scientific” (naturalist) and “experiential” (phenomenological) conception of human beings and their world;
- questions about the relationship between science and technology on the one hand and (ethical and social) values on the other: do values influence science, and/or does science influence values;
- “value-free ideal” of science: is such an ideal internally coherent, possible, or even desirable?
- nature of the scientific mode of knowing and its relation to the other modes of knowing;
- nature of “objectivity” and “factuality”: what do these concepts mean, how are they constituted, and how the impact our understanding of science;
- concrete examples from biology, neuroscience, and psychiatry that shed light on the epistemic, ethical, and existential questions of the relationship between science and society;
- impact contemporary technologies (genetic engineering, neurotechnologies, etc.) on society and the lived world.