Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures

This project interrogates the claims made for the possibility of collapsing all the various disciplines into one discipline, probably physics, and surely a science, in the name of making clearer the relations between our various fields of knowledge. This is the aim of the radical reductionist, and I...

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Main Author: Adams, Jonathan Neil
Published: Durham University 2003
Subjects:
191
Online Access:http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.275691
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spelling ndltd-bl.uk-oai-ethos.bl.uk-2756912015-03-19T05:39:32ZInterference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two culturesAdams, Jonathan Neil2003This project interrogates the claims made for the possibility of collapsing all the various disciplines into one discipline, probably physics, and surely a science, in the name of making clearer the relations between our various fields of knowledge. This is the aim of the radical reductionist, and I take E. O. Wilson's Consilience as exemplary of such attempts. Central to Wilson's method of achieving unity is the new science of evolutionary psychology - itself a re-working of the sociobiology with which Wilson first achieved notoriety. In the on-going project of explaining culture under a Darwinian description, the evolutionary psychologists have begun to suggest explanations for the popularity and content of narrative fiction. Because they are consonant with the rest of science, these biologistic accounts of fiction might be preferable to the accounts traditionally offered by Literary Studies. Consequently, there is a risk that the traditional practices of Literary Studies will be made redundant within the academy and gradually atrophy. The demand is that Literary Studies either makes itself rigorous like the sciences (as with such projects as Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism), or else forfeit its claims to produce knowledge. Aware of this threat, some literary critics embrace forms of relativism in an attempt to deny the unity or effectiveness of scientific knowledge and so neuter the threatened takeover. Among these forms of relativism, Richard Rorty's account seeks to collapse the hierarchy of disciplines and seemingly offers Literary Studies a means of retaining its distinctive approach without denying the effectiveness of scientific knowledge. I aim to show that Literary Studies need not become a science, and that such sciences as evolutionary psychology are neither as threatening as some had feared, nor as useful to literary study as some have hoped.191Evolutionary psychologyDurham Universityhttp://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.275691http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4005/Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
collection NDLTD
sources NDLTD
topic 191
Evolutionary psychology
spellingShingle 191
Evolutionary psychology
Adams, Jonathan Neil
Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
description This project interrogates the claims made for the possibility of collapsing all the various disciplines into one discipline, probably physics, and surely a science, in the name of making clearer the relations between our various fields of knowledge. This is the aim of the radical reductionist, and I take E. O. Wilson's Consilience as exemplary of such attempts. Central to Wilson's method of achieving unity is the new science of evolutionary psychology - itself a re-working of the sociobiology with which Wilson first achieved notoriety. In the on-going project of explaining culture under a Darwinian description, the evolutionary psychologists have begun to suggest explanations for the popularity and content of narrative fiction. Because they are consonant with the rest of science, these biologistic accounts of fiction might be preferable to the accounts traditionally offered by Literary Studies. Consequently, there is a risk that the traditional practices of Literary Studies will be made redundant within the academy and gradually atrophy. The demand is that Literary Studies either makes itself rigorous like the sciences (as with such projects as Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism), or else forfeit its claims to produce knowledge. Aware of this threat, some literary critics embrace forms of relativism in an attempt to deny the unity or effectiveness of scientific knowledge and so neuter the threatened takeover. Among these forms of relativism, Richard Rorty's account seeks to collapse the hierarchy of disciplines and seemingly offers Literary Studies a means of retaining its distinctive approach without denying the effectiveness of scientific knowledge. I aim to show that Literary Studies need not become a science, and that such sciences as evolutionary psychology are neither as threatening as some had feared, nor as useful to literary study as some have hoped.
author Adams, Jonathan Neil
author_facet Adams, Jonathan Neil
author_sort Adams, Jonathan Neil
title Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
title_short Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
title_full Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
title_fullStr Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
title_full_unstemmed Interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
title_sort interference patterns : literary study, scientific knowledge, and disciplinary autonomy after the two cultures
publisher Durham University
publishDate 2003
url http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.275691
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