Worldviews, Science and Us: Redemarcating Knowledge and Its Social and Ethical Implications

This publication features an interdisciplinary group of contributors which questions aspects of today's worldviews and science that are often taken for granted and tacitly determine the boundaries of what is generally conceived of us the 'world' and 'science'. Some authors stress that existing demarcations are obsolete and often prevent new insights. Others show how they influence the way people perceive themselves and believe the world ontologically to be, determining people's actions and the social fabric. There are yet others who point out how a redemarcatian may stimulate the development of knowledge acquisition and social well-being. Examples of how bridging knowledge between different fields leads to new crucial insights, while identifying the pattern of too strict a demarcation preventing such insights, are also analyzed in this volume.

Worldviews, Science and Us: Global Perspectives (D Aerts et al.); Arguments in Favour of Inclusive Science (I Maso); Inclusive Worldviews, Interdisciplinary Research from a Radical Constructivist Perspective (A Riegler); The Chatton-Ockham Strategy: An Alternative to the Simplicity Principle (A Smaling); The Intrinsic Multiplicity of Science: Its Internal and External Confrontations (J Broekaert); To Know or Not to Know, One Way or Another (R Oldeman); A Naturalistic and Critical View of Social Sciences and the Humanities (R Pinxten & N Note); Cultures, Sciences and Endogenous Knowledge Practices: Anthropological Perspectives (R Devisch); On High and Low Styles in Philosophy, or, Towards a Rehabilitation of the Ideal (K van der Wal); Re-Delineating the Human Self-Understanding within the Western Worldview: Social and Ethical Implications (N Note & R Pinxten); Towards a New Democracy: The Realization of Consensus Through a Quantum Parliament (D Aerts); How Incompatible Perspectives Nurture a Global View: Quantum Mechanics and Signal Analysis (S Aerts & D Aerts).