Away MAVE

The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Bibliography

|Home|Aims and Outcomes|Module Description|Tutor Details|Biblio|Assessment|Resources|Discussion|

Core text: William Leiss, The Domination of Nature (New York: Braziller, 1972)

This book does not cover all the topics we will address on this course; unfortunately, as yet there is no single text book which does so. Nonetheless, Leiss provides an extremely readable, influential, and provocative overview of thinking around the central theme of science and the domination of nature, and he offers very clear summaries of authors such as Bacon, Husserl, and Marcuse. We will refer to chapters of his book throughout the course.

Readings:
For most of the blocks of this course two or three specific readings are particularly recommended. These are as follows:”:

Block One: Science, Enlightenment, and Value

(1) I. Kant, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ [1784] Available online at: http://eserver.org/philosophy/Kant/what-is-enlightenment.txt
(2) T. Hayward, ‘Ecology and Enlightenment’, ch. 1 of Ecological Thought: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) pp. 8-22
(3) R. Keat and J. Urry, ‘Values, Theory and Reality’, ch. 9 of Social Theory as Science, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 1982) pp. 13-31

Block Two: Husserl, realism, and the crisis of the sciences

(6) E. Husserl, sections 8-10 of The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) pp. 53-73

Block Three: Marcuse, Habermas, and science as ideology

(7) H. Marcuse, ‘From Negative to Positive Thinking: Technological Rationality and the Logic of Domination’, ch. 6 of One Dimensional Man [1964], available online at: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse/odm6.html
(8) J. Habermas, ‘Science and Technology as Ideology’ [1968], from Sociology of Science, ed. B. Barnes (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972) pp. 74-85

Blocks Four and Five:

Blocks 4 and 5 are not focused on specific readings in the same way that blocks 1-3 are. However a number of web readings are recommended within these blocks. In addition, two generally helpful books in relation to Blocks 4 and 5 are:
(9) John Dryzek, Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Science (Cambridge University Press 1990)
(10) Graham Smith, Deliberative Democracy and the Environment (Routledge 2003).

If you have difficulty getting hold of any of these readings then please email Alison as in many cases she will be able to put scanned copies of the readings up on the discussion site.

Supplementary reading:

Further readings are suggested at the end of each block. But some that you might find useful generally are:

Hayward, T. Ecological Thought
Soper, K. What is Nature?
Feyerabend, P. Science in a Free Society
Easlea, B. Liberation and the Aims of Science
Husserl, E. The Crisis of the European Sciences

Harman, P. The Scientific Revolution
Butterfield, H. The Origins of Modern Science
Marcuse, H. One Dimensional Man
Arendt, H. The Human Condition
Habermas, J. Knowledge and Human Interests

For an account of the 'orthodox' views in the philosophy of science and its critics see A. Chalmers What is this Thing Called Science

There are additional suggested further reading at the end of each block.