León Olivé

De la misma manera en la que Kuhn ha afirmado que “después de una revolución, los científicos responden a un mundo diferente", puede afirmarse que las diversas comunidades de personas, por ejemplo las comunidades étnicas tradicionales -indígenas- en América Latina, responden a mundos diferentes. Esto se puso en evidencia -si hacía falta- en México, con el movimiento armado de indígenas que estalló el 1 de enero de 1994. La ponencia defiende la tesis de que mediante una elucidación apropiada de las nociones de “razón" y de “racionalidad", así como de la noción concomitante de “marco conceptual", es posible sostener un relativismo moderado. Dicha posición es relativista porque acepta la diversidad genuina de puntos de vista, de visiones del mundo, de marcos conceptuales y, junto con lo que se ha dado en llamar una posición intemalista con respecto al conocimiento, y al mundo, puede explicar por qué es aceptable la tesis de Kuhn, v cómo puede comprenderse su extensión a un relativismo conceptual en serio, incluyendo una relatividad ontológica. Esto se argumenta en torno al problema de la identidad, deteniéndose mayormente en la identidad de artefactos, pero haciendo ver cómo es posible extender el argumento a la identidad personal y a la colectiva. Pero la posición es moderada porque continúa sosteniendo la existencia de una comunidad racional a nivel de la especie humana. Desde este punto de vista no hay ningún conjunto de principios y criterios de racionalidad que sea universal. Pero la facultad llamada razón es universal a todos los seres humanos, y esa facultad necesariamente debe desplegarse en la forma de racionalidades (con minúsculas) que toman forma por medio de los diferentes marcos conceptuales. Esa Razón, y esas racionalidades, constituyen condiciones de posibilidad de la interacción dialógica entre seres humanos, incluso en el contexto de la interacción transcultural más heterogénea, a partir de lo cual es sostenible una posición optimista, según la cual son reales las condiciones que hacen posible un enfoque y soluciones racionales a muchos de los grandes conflictos de nuestro tiempo.

durante el siglo XX, particularmente en la segunda mitad, la sociedad y la cultura a nivel planetario sufrieron importantes transformaciones, en gran medida como resultado del impresionantedesarrollo científico y tecnológico. Las formas de producción económica también se transformaron profundamente, al grado que la mayor riqueza, desde el punto de vista económico, es ahora generada por sistemas de producción que, se dice, están “basados en conocimiento”. Parareferirse a estos fenómenos se ha forjado el concepto de “sociedad del conocimiento”. Sin embargo, es un hecho que la ciencia y la tecnología han provocado grandes transformaciones, por lo cual es urgente desarrollar estrategias para fortalecer la cultura científica y tecnológica en los países latinoamericanos. En este texto se discutirán los conceptos aludidos, así como posibles estrategias para fortalecer la cultura científica y tecnológica. Pero se sostendrá, más aún, que un modelo de sociedaddel conocimiento adecuado para nuestros países debe considerar su amplia y rica diversidad cultural, lo cual plantea dificultades adicionales

This paper focuses on the conceptual relationship between rationality and progress as applied to scientific development. The concept of methodology is used in the sense of a model of scientific change. It is argued, as against e.g. recent discussion by Larry Laudan, that progress implies rationality. The notion of rationality useful for this conception of scientific development includes instrumental rationality, butalso the idea of rational paradigm-shift, which is analysed in terms of changes of conceptual frameworks. The key idea is the posibility of a rational reconstruction of series of conceptual frameworks, where the shift from one framework to its successor may be reconstructed as rational in the sense of there being reasons in the successor for accepting the change, and thus the whole series being rational.

In this paper, some theoretical problems about a relevant conceptualization helpful to understand resistance to scientific and technological change are discussed. An interpretative perspective is developed, and some concepts are elucidated, according to which certain processes become scientific changes because, among other things, but in a fundamental way, they are constituted as changes by members of a community. Certain cognitive processes are typified as “scientific”, “technological” and “scientific-technological”, and the importance of their relationship to processes of exploitation is stressed. It is suggested that resistance to changes increases and becomes more problematic when less exploitation is involved in the changes, i.e. when the processes are closer to what here is called scientific, rather than technological or scientific-technological knowledge. Some exampIes are drawn from the history of science to illustrate these ideas.

In this paper the role of values in scientific and technological processes of inquiry is discussed. It is argued that a distinction between science and technology cannot any longer be attempted on the basis of being based upon respectively different sets of values and aims. Furthermore, it is argued that usually these attempts have wrongly characterised science and technology in terms of a fixed and immutable set of aims, values and norms. This sort of characterisation has often been put forward not only for the purposes of such a distinction but as a general idea in philosophy of science. Some of the problems of such and approach are discussed, particularly by examining some recent ideas of Shapere and Laudan, concerning the processes of consensus shaping in the sciences. So, it is concluded that we have to reject the idea that both science and technology are based on a technical interest in knowledge, an idea that normally blurrs the significance of changes at their axiological level, as much as the conception that science and technology belong to completely different camps, which quite often takes their respective axiological levels as immutable.

León Olivé geht von einem normativen Begriff von Toleranz aus. Toleranz muss – so die zentrale These von Olivé – in ein Normen- und Institutionengefüge eingebettet sein, das auf den Prinzipien der Gleichberechtigung und sozialen Gerechtigkeit aufbaut. Toleranz im strengen Sinn des Wortes ist als »horizontale Toleranz« zu fassen, in der die Beziehungen zwischen Menschen und Gruppen ihre Konflikte auf der Basis der Gleichberechtigung und konsentierter Verfahrensregeln zu lösen versuchen. Die »vertikale Toleranz« hingegen, in der dominante Gruppen untergeordnete Gruppen »tolerieren«, dient nach Olivé bloß der Verschleierung von Machtverhältnissen. Toleranz wird daher systematisch mit der Idee sozialer Gerechtigkeit verbunden, die die Bedingungen für die Befriedigung der legitimen Grundbedürfnisse aller Mitglieder einer Gesellschaft und die Verwirklichung und Ausübung ihrer Fähigkeiten sicherstellt.

Philosophy has historically played an important role: it has provided individuals and whole societies with conceptions of the world, which have made meaningful their individual and collective lives. But in our contemporary world, that role has been minimized under the impact of science and technology, the global exchange of information, and the transformation of social structures. The possibility of progress in this respect depends on the possibility of recovering the values of respect and love for others, as well as respect for their cultural values. Finally, it depends on the possibility of turning the notion of humanity into a meaningful one for everybody—not only as a biological species—but rather as a truly global community of people, where differences will always exists and will be most welcome and common projects in the interest of everybody will be agreed upon and developed.

In this paper, some theoretical problems about a relevant conceptualization helpful to understand resistance to scientific and technological change are discussed. An interpretative perspective is developed, and some concepts are elucidated, according to which certain processes become scientific changes because, among other things, but in a fundamental way, they are constituted as changes by members of a community. Certain cognitive processes are typified as “scientific”, “technological” and “scientific-technological”, and the importance of their relationship to processes of exploitation is stressed. It is suggested that resistance to changes increases and becomes more problematic when less exploitation is involved in the changes, i.e. when the processes are closer to what here is called scientific, rather than technological or scientific-technological knowledge. Some exampIes are drawn from the history of science to illustrate these ideas