Science and systems theory
Mr Frank Fisher
12 points
* 3 hours per week
* All year
* Clayton
*
Prerequisites: none
Objectives To develop a working familiarity with the idea that environmental dislocation can be avoided by understanding how humans socially construct their reality and that recognising such understanding implies responsibility for the constructions. Students will develop a generalised capacity for reflexive analysis:, ie a familiarity with the formal and informal institutions underpinning society and how these institutions themselves are explicated and altered. The subject provides the graduate school's intellectual complement to existing scientific and professional bases of `action-in-environment'.
Synopsis Through an investigation of the structure of knowledge, this subject develops understanding of what the Club of Rome once called the `environmental problematique'. In addition to observable environmental and social breakdown, the term refers to the set of interlocking structures (frameworks of ideas, institutions and actual hardware) which give rise to environmental and social dislocation. The subject attempts to show that such dislocation is a direct outcome of these structures and that it is possible to generalise about the behaviour of the complex processes they enable. It begins with an overview of our present way of establishing reality, the scientific method, in order to show how it is socially constructed. It investigates general systems theory as a tool with which - in conjunction with empirical science - we might more readily and critically understand the complex phenomena associated with nature. With this tool a practical exercise taken from the lives of students will be conducted and analysed. In addition to this practical exercise the course includes an exercise in the public domain reported in the first tutorial paper; a weekend excursion in company with students undertaking ENV8390 (Ecological systems and management) and participation in twenty environmental forum sessions, one of which will be formally reported upon. The graduate school's weekly environmental forum discusses issues relevant to environment. Speakers are invited from all walks of life, from outside and inside the university and from among environmental science. candidates and staff members. The series offers students an opportunity to participate in discussion of research projects and topical interests broadly relevant to environmental science.
Assessment Three tutorial papers (1000 words each): 40%
* Two
practical reports (1000 words each): 20%
* Essay (3000 words): 25%
*
Environmental Forum analysis (1000 words): 10%
* Environmental Forum
journal: 5%
* One weekend excursion (no formal assessment)
Preliminary texts
Smil V Global ecology, environmental change and social flexibility Routledge, 1993
plus one of
Albury R The politics of objectivity Deakin University, 1983
Appleyard B Understanding the present Picador, 1992
Bohm D and Edwards M Changing consciousness Harper, 1991
Diamond I and Orenstein G (eds) Reweaving the world Sierra Club, 1990
Ornstein R and Ehrlich P New world new mind Methuen, 1989
Postman N Conscientious objections Heinemann, 1989
Postman N Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology Vintage, 1993
Sacks O Seeing voices: A journey into the world of the deaf Picador, 1989
Recommended texts (one of the following)
Barnes B and Edge E (eds) Science in context Open University, 1982
Charlesworth M and others Life among the scientists OUP, 1989
Mulkay M Science and the sociology of knowledge Allen and Unwin, 1979
Woolgar S Science: The very idea Horwood/Tavistock, 1988
Riggs P Whys and ways of science MUP, 1992
plus
Maturana H R and Varela F J The tree of knowledge Shambhala, 1987
| Published by Monash University, Clayton, Victoria
3168 Copyright © Monash University 1996 - All Rights Reserved - Caution Authorised by the Academic Registrar December 1996 |