Virginia Chaitin lecturing on Metabiology: Methodological Considerations
and Philosophical Interpretations, UNC, Córdoba, Argentina, Aug 2, 2011.
Audio of this lecture (in Spanish). Virginia is presented by Prof. Víctor Rodríguez.
Virginia Chaitin has a doctorate from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and is a postdoc there.
Her specialty is mimetic (non-isomorphic) concept migration, interdisciplinary epistemology and multiple rationalities.
In her postdoc she is concentrating on one particular instantiation of this:
the new field of metabiology.
Virginia Chaitin lecturing on Metabiology: Methodological Considerations
and
Philosophical Interpretations, UNC, Córdoba, Argentina, Aug 2, 2011.
Audio of this lecture (in Spanish). Virginia is presented by Prof. Víctor Rodríguez.
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Virginia Chaitin, Edinburgh, Scotland, August 2011
MIMETIC CONCEPTUAL NETWORKS IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS:
A PROPOSAL FOR A PLURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY
Virginia Maria Fontes Gonçalves Chaitin
Advisor: Professor Ricardo Silva Kubrusly
We propose a pluralistic, permeable epistemology that recognizes different forms
of rationality specifically tailored to different kinds of knowledge. For this
purpose, we carry out a transdisciplinary study of rationality that inter-weaves
epistemology, antropology, linguistics and historiography, and which reveals new
aspects of rationality not present in traditional dualist (rational-irrational)
epistemologies. We also propose what we term "epistemic asymmetry," and we
analyze the basic features of pluralistic rationality and of the mimetic migration
of concepts between the different kinds of knowledge that we consider, which
include totemic knowledge, hermeticism, alchemy, and also modern science.
Furthermore, our proposed pluralistic, permeable epistemology is helpful for
understanding the dynamics of major scientific paradigm shifts, and also for
understanding concept migration between different fields of modern science.
Key-words: mimetic concept migration, pluralistic rationality, pluralistic
epistemology, epistemic asymmetry, transdisciplinarity
REDES CONCEITUAIS EM MÍMESIS NA HISTORIA DAS IDÉIAS:
UMA PROPOSTA DE EPISTEMOLOGIA PLURALISTA
DISSERTAÇÃO DE MESTRADO
DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOSOFIA
Paul Karl Feyerabend is generally known as the philosopher of science against the
idea of a unique scientific method, rationality and the view that science is a
privileged form of knowledge. He proposed and defended epistemological
anarchism and argued that, regarding scientific methodological rules, the only
possible rule is "anything goes". Since we consider this general image a
simplification of Feyerabend's epistemology, we intend to show that this
philosopher was much more a critic of uniformity and a defender of diversity,
when it comes to different forms of knowledge and worldviews, than an opponent
of science per se. From this point of view, Feyerabend's writings occupy a special
standing in the rationality of science debate, since his approach goes beyond the
irrationalist relativist positions that state the influence of irrational factors in the
development of so called scientific knowledge. In this research, we shall
emphasize those feyerabendian arguments that constitute an alert towards the lack
of a critical attitude regarding scientific standards — Objectivity, Reason and Truth
— as providers of a legitimate privilege of science in relation to other forms of
knowledge. In addition, we shall also discuss the undesirable consequences of this
lack of criticism not only within the philosophy of science but also for the
development of scientific knowledge itself and, over all, for the accomplishment
of individuality, of liberty and of the human potential.
MASTER'S DEGREE IN LOGIC AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Master's Thesis:
1995
Video of this lecture:
Part 1
Part 2
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Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Books
Metabiologia: A vida como criatividade selvagem,
Perspectiva, São Paulo, 2012-13.
[Metabiology: Life as Savage Creativity]
Ph.D. Thesis
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2009
Master's Theses
PUC-Rio, março de 2004
Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia
Philosophy Department
The London School of Economics and Political Science — LSE
A Schematic Approach to Scientific Reasoning
CV Lattes
Lectures
Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain, October 2011
Virginia is presented by Prof. Miguel Angel Martin-Delgado
Please note there is a missing ten-minute segment
Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, September 2011
Articles
Scientiarum História IV,
UFRJ - HCTE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2011
Scientiarum História III,
UFRJ - HCTE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2010
7o Congresso Latino-Americano de História da Ciência e da Tecnologia, SBHC,
UFBA, Salvador, Brazil, November 2010
