Interdependence: Beyond the Binaries

Description

A focus on the autonomous individual as the primary unit of concern has characterized both philosophy and social and life science. Feminists, on the other hand, have rejected the traditional focus on the autonomous individual as an expression of the neglect of gender in understanding all forms of social life. This lecture explores ways of moving beyond the binaries of independence/dependence and autonomous/ heteronomous to an analytic stance that recognizes both individuals and the social and physical relations in which they find themselves.

Professor Helen Longino is the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The author of several books, including Studying Human Behavior, she is particularly interested in the relations between scientific inquiry and its social, cultural, and economic contexts and is known for her arguments in defense of a social account of objectivity, a position she called critical contextual empiricism.

The purpose of the Wiegand Memorial Foundation Lecture is to facilitate the encounter and advance the dialogue between science and the non-rational in the modern world as understood by, but not limited to, intuition, the spiritual dimension in life, poetry, art, literature, music, symbols, belief and faith.