Psychiatry, postmodernism and postnormal science

Postmodernism — Science — Philosophy

The fundamental questions to be addressed are these: What is the impact of "postmodernism" on the relationship between philosophy and science? What are the possible consequences of the postmodernist whirlwind on the status of philosophy in contemporary culture? And, does postmodernism add new questions to the gnawing issue over the degree, if any, to which a philosopher is a scientist? It would...

Science and Psychiatry

more satisfactory treatment than actual psychiatric illness. In fact, this is probably the best short description available of recent scientific progress in mental subnormality, as well as providing the essential facts of these conditions. As would be expected, the book has a strong ideological standpoint, which causes the influence of heredity to be greatly devalued, compared with that of envi...

Postmodernism and criminological thought : ‘ Whose science ? Whose knowledge ?

Welcome to postnormal times

All that was ‘normal’ has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the inbetween period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense. To have any notion of a viable future, we must grasp the significance of this period of transition which is characterised by three c’s: complexity, chaos and contradictions. These forces propel and sustai...

Foundations of "new" social science: institutional legitimacy from philosophy, complexity science, postmodernism, and agent-based modeling.

Since the death of positivism in the 1970s, philosophers have turned their attention to scientific realism, evolutionary epistemology, and the Semantic Conception of Theories. Building on these trends, Campbellian Realism allows social scientists to accept real-world phenomena as criterion variables against which theories may be tested without denying the reality of individual interpretation an...