Friday, June 11, 2010
In his latest book "De waarheid op de wand, psychoanalyse van het weten", philosopher Hub Zwart (director Centre for Society and Genomics) analyses the role of images in science.
While scientists express existing perceptions by means of figures, jargon and mathematical symbols, players outside the world of science assign an important role to the use of images. For example, scientists are responsible for creating monsters: the Frankenstein scenario.
When one takes a closer look, however, it appears that scientists themselves are also very good at developing and advancing influential, fascinating or even alarming images.
Those images can vary from the never-ending 'battle for existence'
that rules the nature around us to the magnificent double helix that portrays our genetic material. ’De waarheid op de wand‘ uncovers the fundamental images (the 'archetypes') that give direction to the 'urge to know' so characteristic of the natural sciences. Such archetypes appear to play a role in every field of science. They emerge most strongly during times of crisis and uncertainty. For medical science, for example, it is the fear of a new worldwide contagious disease, climate research is driven by the notion of global climate change, and economics become 'popular' when the image arises of a catastrophic stock market crash.
The book subjects the imagery used by the scientific community to
a psychoanalytical study, starting from the earliest myths of knowing
up to and including the worldwide revolution that is currently mobilising the life sciences.
Hub Zwart, ‘De waarheid op de wand, psychoanalyse van het weten’, May 2010, ISBN 9789460040481, 320 pages, € 24.95