Writing a book that integrated the various fields of behavioral study, especially ethology and experimental psychology, into common basic language was a dream cherished for over 50 years by American ethologist Jerry Hogan, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.

Hogan decided to take the opportunity to finally write the book in 2009, when the then director of the IEA, ethologist César Ades (1943-2012), invited him to present a project to be a visiting professor of the Institute. Released last November by the Cambridge University Press, 'Study of Behavior - Organization, Methods and Principles' ($ 99.99) is the result of the researcher's stay at the IEA from August 2013 to July 2015.

During a visit to São Paulo in the first week of 2018, Hogan gave an interview about the book and the various changes in the study of behavior in the last decades. The following is the edited version of the Q&A session.

IEA - Your idea of ​​writing a book relating what is common between ethology and experimental psychology arose more than 50 years ago, during your postdoc studies in the Netherlands. Since then both disciplines have been transformed and others related to them have grown, furtherly increasing the fragmentation of knowledge. In this sense, could one say that it was better to write this book now and by that be able to relate all the old and new fields of study?

Hogan - At that time, the great apparent discrepancy between ethology and experimental psychology was the idea that ethologists observe animals and their natural surroundings while psychologists observe behavior in the laboratory. In addition, ethologists are concerned with what many call instinctive behavior and psychologists look to learning. In a way, they are different, but if we think of a term of 'doctrine,' the psychologist and the ethologist are quite similar, since both try to understand how animals behave. Since then, both fields have changed dramatically. Ethology has become much more ecological and interested in different kinds of evolutionary explanations. Psychology changed from being interested in responding to the stimulus to something much more cognitive. Psychologists have understood that something happens in the brain between the stimulus and the response to it. Both original fields have become much more comprehensive and changed in many ways. One of the things I discovered is that many people felt that the old ideas were all wrong, that everything should be considered in a new way. To show that this is not true is one of the things I hope my book will do, because it is almost a historical book, which examines all the old ideas, modifies them and tries to show what is most relevant to the kind of thing people are currently doing.

IEA - The preface mentions that this is not a normal course book, because you did not seek to make a review of relevant literature, but rather a monograph with your ideas on various aspects of behavior. Either way, can the achieved result be considered as a conception of how a behavioral researcher should be trained?

Hogan - I think so. The book presents behavior as I think it can be understood better, so that everyone can think about it. I introduce other ideas and show how my ideas could be used to interpret the same kinds of data that people are talking about. When I say that it is not a literature review, I mean that I do not say 'There are these ideas about this; this is mine and this is the way to compare it with the others.' It is also not a review in the sense of presenting examples in detail. The reader can see how the experiment has been done, how the conclusion was reached. The book features relevant things, such as 'A discovered this; B, that; C, that other; this is a good experiment, these are the ideas and that is how the experiment was done.' I think it is a good book to teach people to understand behavior and to show how they can research it.

IEA - When you speak of similarities between the fields of behavioral study does it mean that they deal with the phenomena in a similar way, arriving at near conclusions? Or are the approaches complementary?

Hogan - The phenomena are the same: animals, including people, doing something. This is behavior. How to investigate it and how to interpret it. Niko Tinbergen, one of the founders of ethology, had a list of four different types of questions that can be asked: what causes behavior, how it develops, what its value for survival is, and how it evolves. Psychologists in general are not interested in value for survival or evolution. Many ethologists have become interested only in evolution and no longer in the things of behavior. In fact, if you read a British course book on ethology, you will find almost no reference to what ancient ethologists used to do, or about things that psychologists and neurophysiologists are doing. On the other hand, neurophysiologists, who are interested in memory and related topics, do not talk about how behavior evolves. They present different questions. One of the things that Tinbergen said many years ago is that one should really look at phenomena in all different ways but a psychologist might say that evolution is not relevant to the study or that it is relevant but they will not care about it. That it is not necessary.

IEA - How did your stay at the IEA and the interactions with USP's researchers contribute to the production of the book?

Hogan - I taught a psychology course at USP in 1977, when I met César Ades. We kept in touch and I was back in Brazil in 2008 and 2009. When I was here, during a lunchtime, César suggested that I came here as a visiting professor. I thought that was a good idea, but I had to have a project. As I said in the preface, I had been thinking of writing the book for 50 years. I more or less knew what I had to do to present the proposal. They accepted me and I started my book. It was a continuation of my contact with Brazilian researchers. The offered conditions were excellent, especially the fact that no one bothers you. You sit in your office and no one knocks on the door to ask you to do anything. And if you need help, you just ask someone.

IEA - What are the perspectives for the study of behavior in the upcoming decades? Can new fields of study emerge to be integrated with existing ones?

Hogan - What the book can do is bring together people from different fields, such as neurophysiology, behavioral ecology and neuropsychology, who think differently from different perspectives, and allow them to use a common language. I think this is the real importance of the book: defining a type of language to talk about cognitive psychology, rat behavior, evolution. I use a basic vocabulary that applies to all of these fields. It is not much different from what other people are doing. You have to specialize in what you are doing in the lab or in a private study, but you should be thinking about things in terms of a broad picture.

IEA - After the effort of producing the book, do you intend to start some new project linked to the study of behavior?

Hogan - I am thinking about it. I have been collaborating with other people's experimental research. They are doing lab work. I have not been in a lab in a long time. I am not really observing animals, but I collaborate in the basic discussions about the experiments. I have to say that when I wrote the book I learned a lot. The chapters deal with different areas. What struck me is that some ideas from one area are very similar to those of another and I had never thought about these relations. If I have courage, I will write about them.

Photo: Sandra Codo/IEA-USP

A trajectory linked to Brazil

Jeffrey Lesser has a proximate relationship to Brazilian history and is an unstopPable follower of life in the country. An example of this involvement is the article he wrote for CNN's website immediately after the demonstrations against the Brazilian government on August 16.

Lesser is currently Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Brazilian Studies, Director of Brazil Initiative and Head of the Department of History at Emory University, in Atlanta.

He obtained his Ph.D. in history at New York University, supervised by Brazilianist Warren Dean (1932-1994), who was a lecturer at the IEA-USP in the late 80s. Lesser became master through the American Civilization Program of Brown University, where he majored in political science.

Lesser has already been a professor at the University of Tel Aviv (Israel), at the USP, at the UNICAMP and at the UFRJ (Brazil), and at the Connecticut College, at the Occidental College and at Brown University (USA).

His most recent book is "Imigração, Etnicidade a Identidade Nacional no Brasil", which will be released still in 2015 by Editora Unesp (the original version in English came out by the Cambridge University Press in 2013).

Historian Jeffrey Lesser, from Emory University, wants to contribute with public health policies that combat infectious diseases through the analysis of historical and epidemiological data. This is how he sums up the research project that he intends to develop as the new visiting professor of the IEA-USP from October 1. Lesser's work will be linked to the Institute's research group on Intercultural Dialogues.

"Metropolis, Migration and Mosquitoes" will have Lesser and eco-epidemiologist Uriel Kitron as main researchers. Kitron will work from Emory University, of which he is also a professor.

According to Lesser, the project will provide alternative means for understanding and overcoming cultural barriers in health care. "We will use a new integrated approach to the humanities methods (historic analysis), and the natural and social sciences (ecology, epidemiology) to answer questions on immigration, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and health outcomes," explains the historian.

The diseases chosen for the study are yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya, all three caused by viruses that have mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albapictus as vectors. Lesser considers the project particularly important at this time due to the fact that São Paulo expects the arrival of chikungunya in the city this year.

They will research two areas of the city: Luz / Bom Retiro (with 70,000 inhabitants) and Liberdade / Cambuci (with 90,000 inhabitants). According to Lesser, these areas "have historically shown differences in the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases and the response to them."

These regions have been chosen because they are home to Brazilian immigrant and foreign immigrant communities. "In both regions there is an area considered by the general population as 'foreign' and socially upward and another one considered 'Brazilian' and socially stagnant," says Lesser.

In both regions there will be an examination of the ecology of diseases, demographic patterns and health discourses in cases of yellow fever (19th century), dengue (20th century) and chikungunya (21st century). Interdisciplinary methodologies derived from epidemiological ethnography of inhabited areas and approaches based on a system of historical and geographical information will allow to store and analyze geographic data from the past and simulate changes over time.

Lacey’s model is unique because it includes, in the same analytical framework, epistemological issues and concrete implications of science in contemporary society. In his studies, Lacey questions the idea that domination over nature is an intrinsic ethical value of scientific practice and argues that scientific institutions – and the scientists themselves – must take into account social, ecological and human contexts when choosing the strategy of their research. “Scientific work has been treated more like a business and scientists are subject to pressures of productivity that often leave them with no time to reflect on and discuss their responsibilities as scientists,” he stressed.

In the following interview to journalist Flávia Dourado, Lacey explains some of the assumptions of his model, criticizes the growing subordination of science to economic interests, and calls attention to the importance of developing alternatives to today’s hegemonic currents by investing, for instance, in studies on agroecology as a way of highlighting the risks involved in transgenesis. According to him, “contemporary scientific institutions are dominated by the notion that science aims to generate technoscientific innovations that contribute to economic growth and, more generally, to technological and economic progress.”

1) The model of interaction between science and values that you propose assumes a distinction between epistemic/cognitive values and social and ethical values. What characterizes each of these value groups in their relationship with the scientific endeavor?

In the model, several logically (not temporally) distinct moments (or stages) of scientific activities have been identified, including: M₁ – adoption of a research strategy; M₂ – undertaking the research; M₃ – cognitive evaluation of theories and hypotheses; M₄ – dissemination of scientific results; an M₅ – application of scientific knowledge. The epistemic/cognitive values concern the criteria for the cognitive evaluation of theories and hypotheses (i.e., evaluation of them as bearers of knowledge and understanding of phenomena) at M₃. They include, among others, the empirical adequacy, explanatory power and consistency of theories and hypotheses.^[i] Social and ethical values may have various (proper, as well as sometimes improper) roles at the other moments. These values concern, respectively, ideals of a good (or desirable) society (e.g., progress, social justice) and of acceptable and obligatory human behavior and relations (e.g., honesty, autonomy, solidarity).^[ii] The distinction between cognitive and the other kinds of values underlies the ideal of impartiality (or objectivity), that (at M₃) judgments about scientific knowledge should be based only on the cognitive values, and that they neither presuppose not imply any commitments concerning social and ethical values.^[iii]

2) Is it the distinction between these two value groups ​​that allows us to make an ethical and political critique of science without necessarily questioning scientific objectivity?

Yes. Political/ethical values may play roles at all the moments, except M3, without impartiality being impaired. E.g., at M₁, social values may have an integral role in the adoption of strategies for research, where strategies involve (1) constraints on the kinds of theories and hypotheses that will be considered in a research program, and (2) criteria for the selection of empirical data to procure and record – of what phenomena, in what (often experimental) conditions – for the sake of gaining knowledge of selected phenomena, or aspects of them, and identifying the possibilities open to them.^[iv] The constraints limit the kinds of phenomena (and possibilities open to them) of which we gain knowledge in a research project, and so social values may play a role in determining what phenomena are investigated. However, the knowledge we gain of them should be established at M₃, in the light only of the empirical data, and whether or not the knowledge claims (theories, hypotheses) being evaluated manifest the cognitive values highly in relation to these data. The impartiality of this knowledge, therefore, is not impaired. Remember, however, that it is knowledge of the selected kinds of phenomena; and gaining knowledge of them (rather than of other kinds of phenomena) may serve especially well interests informed by certain social/ethical/political values. So, one may make political/ethical criticism of the adoption of these strategies rather than other ones, without challenging the impartiality of the knowledge gained and without implying that this knowledge (qua knowledge) should be challenged on political/ethical grounds. The political/ethical criticism would lead to engaging also in research that is conducted under other strategies that would enable knowledge of phenomena (of interest in light of the political/ethical values in play) to be gained.

This point is of great significance in my discussions of the controversies connected with using transgenics.^[v] [Throughout this interview, I will frequently make use of the case of transgenics and its competitors, e.g., agroecology.] The knowledge that has informed developments and innovations of transgenics (gained under strategies deployed in molecular biology and biotechnology) accords with impartiality; but it tells us little about the environmental and social risks that are occasioned by using transgenics, or about the alternatives (e.g., agroecology) that might be used in agricultural practices. Political/social/economic considerations lie behind emphasizing almost exclusively the research conducted under the strategies of molecular biology and biotechnology, and downplaying research on the other phenomena just referred to. Likewise, different political/social/economic considerations lie behind questioning the relative inattention given to research conducted under strategies that could inform issues of risks and alternatives. Either way, political/ethical values influence judgments made at M₁, but (in principle, for all parties) this leave impartiality unchallenged at M₃.

3) Does a criticism focused on ethical and social values include scrutinizing the submission of scientific activity to economic values, particularly to the ideals of development and progress?

Yes. Contemporary scientific institutions are dominated by the notion that science aims to generate technoscientific innovations that contribute to economic growth and, more generally, to technological and economic progress. This has several problematic consequences. They include:

a) The criteria for evaluating scientific contributions, and the productivity of individual scientists, have become intertwined with (in some cases subordinated to) economic considerations. E.g., gaining patents to discoveries has become an indicator of scientific success. The intertwining of scientific and economic considerations can create conflicts of interest (e.g., downplaying evidence of potential risks of using a new drug, in order not to endanger its profitable use; and keeping empirical data pertaining to risks secret).

b) Scientific work has become treated more like work within a business, and scientists have become subjected to productivist pressures that often leave them with little time for reflection and discussion about their responsibilities as scientists. Marcos Barbosa de Oliveira, co-director (with Pablo Mariconda) of the Theme Project Genesis and Meaning of Technoscience: On the Relationships between Science, Technology and Society, in which I am a participant and which is located in IEA, has written important articles on these consequences.

4) Has science prioritized values linked to private interests, to capital, to the detriment of those associated with public interests and social welfare?

Following up my response to the previous question, the notion that underlies “private-interest science” – that science aims to generate technoscientific innovations that contribute to economic growth and, more generally, to technological and economic progress – entrenches the almost exclusive role given in scientific institutions to research strategies (like those of molecular biology [see response to question 2]) that constrain the theories investigated to those that can represent the underlying law and structure of phenomena in a way that dissociates them from their ecological, human and social contexts. I now call them decontextualizing strategies.^[vi] It is a consequence of adopting decontextualizing strategies almost exclusively that environmental and social effects of introducing innovations (such as those connected with climate change) tend not to be well investigated in advance of their introduction.

I have argued that private-interest science, not only conflicts with the ideal of the modern scientific tradition that scientific knowledge belongs to the common patrimony of humanity, but also weakens democratic institutions.^[vii] In several recent writings,^[viii] I have proposed that this approach to scientific research should be balanced by strong support (including appropriate levels of funding) for research that is framed by the following question:

“How should scientific research be conducted, and by whom, with what priorities and using what kinds of strategies, and how should technologies be developed and administered, so as to ensure that nature is respected, that its regenerative powers are not further undermined and restored wherever possible, and that the rights, well being and conditions for constructive participation in a democratic society, are enhanced for everyone everywhere?”

Obviously, asking this question is motivated by ethical/social values, by interest in public interests that are not subordinated to commercial ones. However [see answer to question 2]), this does not imply that impartial knowledge of phenomena (e.g., linked with environmental risks, and approaches to practical activities like agriculture that are not based on technoscientific innovations) cannot be obtained in research conducted under the strategies adopted – just as aiming to foster economic growth and progress (also social values) is consistent with gaining impartial knowledge of phenomena and their underlying laws and structures.

5) How do you see the tensions between the public and the private that underlie contemporary scientific controversies, such as those related to climate change, transgenesis and nuclear power?

I find it difficult to address these three cases together; so, in order to give a sharper answer, I’ll just focus on the transgenics case. I have argued in several writings that public interests can be well served (and the question [posed in the response to question 3] answered in concrete terms) only if agricultural innovations and policies are responses that arise in research that addresses the question of “the space of agricultural alternatives”:^[ix] “Which agricultural methods – ‘conventional,’ transgenic, organic, agroecological, biodynamic, subsistence, indigenous, permaculture and others, including those adapted to urban environments –, in which combinations and with which place-specific variations might be sustainable (even in the current situation of global warming and climate change), relatively free from harm and from the risk of doing harm, and productive enough, when accompanied by viable distribution methods (taking into account the largest population concentration in urban environments), to meet the food and nutrition needs of the world’s population for the foreseeable future?”

Transgenics were introduced, not after receiving confirmation from research, which dealt with the space of alternatives, that transgenics were indeed needed for meeting the world’s food needs. Instead, the research and development of the transgenics that are currently being used responded more to the question: “Using the methods of genetic engineering, what traits can crop plants be modified to have; and which ones might be able to be commercially exploited?” Having recognized the potential of using transgenics for commercial (private interests, agribusiness corporations went ahead with developing and implementing varieties of transgenics with the traits that they deemed desirable (e.g., resistance to herbicides that the corporations themselves produced). Putting resources into investigating the question of the space of alternatives would be contrary to their interests – for, antecedently to its being conducted, that research could not guarantee that a major role (or, indeed, any role at all) for transgenics would be supported.

6) Are the values of objectivity, neutrality and autonomy, so dear to scientific endeavor, being jeopardized because of the growing influence of the private sector in science through research funding?

In the seminars I gave at  the IEA in 2013, I stated the ideal of neutrality in this way:^[x] “In principle, (1) each value perspective (viable and sustainable in today’s democratic societies) is embedded in practices that may be informed by some items of the established corpus of scientific knowledge (or that may use some applications of scientific knowledge), and (2) the body of scientific knowledge (as a whole) serves all value perspectives more or less equally, without favoring some over others.” Neutrality is undermined when scientific institutions become dependent on private sources for their funding (or public sources that prioritize research that is intended to contribute to economic growth). Then the outcomes of research are likely to serve especially well the interests of capital and the market often at the expense of those that may reflect values connected (e.g.) with social justice and environmental sustainability. Research, development and innovation of transgenics (e.g.) has served the interests of agribusiness very well, but transgenics have no place in (e.g.) agroecology, an approach to farming that responds to such values as social justice, maintaining the well-being of local communities and strengthening their cultural values, democratic participation and sustainability; and, where private interests have influence over scientific institutions, research that would be potentially relevant to agroecology (e.g., research pertaining to the space of alternatives) is thoroughly marginalized.

Where neutrality is weakened, so too is autonomy, where autonomy refers to the ideal that there be no interference from non-scientific interests (religious, political, economic) in setting the agendas and methodologies of scientific research.^[xi] However, autonomy is difficult to characterize precisely, for scientific institutions depend on outside bodies for their funding, so that outside influences cannot be eliminated even in principle. The difficult issue is how to reconcile a role for outside influences but not to permit outside interference. “Private-interest science” has little interest in exploring such reconciliation.

Note that issues about neutrality are especially pertinent at M₅, and those about autonomy at M₁. Those involving impartiality (objectivity) are especially pertinent at both M₃ and M₅. At M₅, questions about both the efficacy of an innovation and the legitimacy of using it need to be considered. Usually matters of efficacy are settled at M₃; the knowledge that underlies the claim that an innovation works (and how it works) is expected to be confirmed in accordance with impartiality. Legitimacy, however, involves issues of benefits, harm caused, risks and possible alternatives. These are all matters with ethical implications, and usually none of them are adequately addressed in the scientific research that leads to impartial claims being made about efficacy. E.g., the efficacy of using certain transgenics in certain conditions is explained by reference to the theories of molecular biology and biotechnology that enabled the development of transgenics; but this research tells us nothing about the social and ecological conditions needed for, and effects of, using transgenics in actual agricultural practices. Private interest science is well served by insisting on the ideal of impartiality at M₃ (although it does open up possibilities for conflicts of interests [see response to question 3); but by not providing support for research on the crucial issues about legitimacy, any claims made about, e.g., there being no serious risks that cannot be dealt with adequately in the light of enforced regulations, are likely to be discordant with impartiality.

7) According to the model you propose, social and ethical values operate mainly in the choice of a research strategy. The way this choice is made explains why science prefers research problems that are relevant from the standpoint of interests associated with economic growth and the policies that emphasize it, but less auspicious to the interests of popular movements, family farmers and, overall, marginalized people and groups?

In discussions of the model, I emphasize the role of social and ethical values (at M₁) in choosing the strategies to be adopted in a research project. This is the most distinctive feature of the model. However, these values also have roles at the other moments (except at M₃). The role they play at M₅ is especially noteworthy, and it is closely connected with the role they play at M₁: frequently strategies are adopted anticipating applications that would serve interests that embody specific values. In contemporary scientific institutions, research projects tend to be chosen that require the adoption of strategies [the ones I called decontextualizing strategies in my response to question 3] that have mutually reinforcing relations with the values of technological progress and those of capital and the market, the values desired to be especially well served by applications (innovations) that arise from the research. But these values conflict with those articulated in the popular movements (e.g., social justice, participatory democracy, sustainability), which are not well represented in scientific institutions, and so little support becomes available to engage in research under the strategies (strategies that do not involve decontextualization) that might produce results that would serve their interests.

The role that social and ethical values play in the adoption of research strategies makes it highly likely that the results of the research, on application, will serve especially well interests that embody these values, often at the expense of interests that embody competing values. This implies that neutrality cannot be approximated, unless scientific institutions become open to supporting a multiplicity and variety of research programs that can be responsive to the range of value held in a democratic society.^[xii]

8) Among the values that influence scientific endeavor, do you include values linked to ambition for academic prestige, to the desire for power and to the political game that often pervades scientific activity?

Yes, values like these are often in play at M₂, the moment of carrying out the research, and the influence can be quite positive when it provides motivation to engage with really difficult questions – the aspiration to gain the Nobel Prize is generally thought to be an appropriate one for scientists to have. These values can also have negative influence. For example, at M₁ today, they may contribute to strengthening the idea of science as investigation aiming to produce technoscientific innovations that contribute to economic growth, and the unfortunate consequences connected with this [see response to question 6]; and, at M₃, they may lead to personal interests over-riding judgments that should be supported by the evidence alone, and create conflicts of interest in various other ways. The so-called “scientific ethos” described by the sociologist Robert Merton is intended to counteract the negative effects of these values. I, myself, have not written much on this question.

9) You associate the Baconian principle of control over nature with the decontextualized approach to science, distinguished by a disregard for the ecological, social and human contexts that underlie the phenomena being studied. What values predominate in this approach?

Yes, I have argued that there are mutually reinforcing relations between adopting decontextualizing strategies and holding a value-outlook that contains what I now call the values of technological progress, In this value-outlook, the exercise of control over natural objects – or, in Bacon’s terminology, “the domination of nature” – becomes in itself a social value that is not generally or systematically subordinated to other social values, while high ethical value is attributed to innovations that increase human ability to control natural objects; to the evergrowing penetration of technologies into more and more domains of daily life,  human experience and social institutions; and to the definition of problems in terms that make for technoscientific solutions. Pablo Mariconda’s articles on this topic are very good. Furthermore, in present-day technoscience, holding the values of technological progress is reinforced by (and reinterpreted in the light of) the fact that today institutions that embody values of capital and the market (especially economic growth and the centrality of property) are the foremost bearers of these values.

10) Is it the prevalence of these values that hinders the advancement of research aimed at social inclusion and sustainability? What are the challenges to carry out alternative research programs that do not adopt the decontextualized approach to science?

The values of technological progress (especially when interpreted in the light of those of capital and the market) are in all sorts of ways in conflict with those of social justice, social inclusion, the well-being of everyone, and environmental sustainability. Where they predominate (and they predominate in most countries today) there is likely to be little public or private material, financial and other support for engaging in research conducted under strategies that have mutually reinforcing relations with the competing values. E. g., using my earlier example, there is little support for agroecology, or for the investigation of risks that have socioeconomic mechanisms that may be occasioned by introducing technoscientific innovations, or for research concerning programs of public health that integrally involve the participation (in both research and delivery of services) of local groups, or for research on the possible fruitful interaction between modern scientific studies and indigenous knowledge and methods of its acquisition, or in social technology – to mention just a few areas of significance. (Incidentally, I refer to the strategies needed for research in these areas as involving “alternative strategies.” By this, I intend to convey that it requires the use of strategies that are not reducible to decontextualizing ones; but it also makes use (where appropriate) of results obtained under decontextualizing strategies. The alternatives strategies could not replace decontextualizing ones for all research purposes. The model allows for pluralism of strategies; it does not challenge the central importance of decontextualizing strategies.)^[xiii]

The great challenge is to gain more space for conducting research under the alternative strategies, and to continue to expand it. This involves many dimensions.

Philosophers of science (like myself) have an important role: to show (among other things) (1) that the virtual exclusivity of the decontextualizing strategies in contemporary natural scientific research is not soundly based in the ideals – impartiality, neutrality and autonomy – of the scientific tradition; (2) that, in fact, the predominance of these strategies is owed more to the mutually reinforcing relations between adopting them and holding the values of technological progress; and (3) that, when research as a whole is conducted under a plurality of strategies, the possibility of moving towards realization of the traditional ideals becomes apparent – more generally, to show that science does not have to be conducted in the way in which it is largely conducted in mainstream scientific institutions, and that there are good reasons (based in the ideals of the tradition) why these institutions should open up space to the alternatives.

But that is only a beginning step. The challenge requires drawing input from many parties, each one engaged in efforts in its own space and practices. The prospects for success will depend on achieving successes, initially small-scale ones, in many spaces and practices that, in turn, open up possibilities for expansion when put into dialectical interaction with the others. It requires the unfolding of a very complex dialectic, which would require – cooperatively, simultaneously and in interaction – expanding successful achievements connected with each of the following matters (and, no doubt, others):^[xiv]

a) Taking advantage of the space that is available in institutions, like universities, that are not completely dominated by the values of capital and the market and that see themselves as having responsibilities to further democratic interests, and develop research projects that use some of the alternative strategies (e.g., in agroecology, public health and preventive medicine, alternative sources of energy, free computer software, etc).

b) Taking steps towards claiming and strengthening autonomy in research institutions: towards freeing them from the disproportionate influence of the values of capital and the market in setting the priorities of scientific research and determining appropriate methodologies, from the interference derived from holding these values in the conduct of science (e.g., via legal imposition of regimes of intellectual property rights), and from impositions that are being made on the character of scientific work and its regimes of operation [see response to question 3].

c) Aiming for more widespread adoption of the Precautionary Principle in research institutions,^[xv] and its incorporation in public science policies, so that technoscientific innovation becomes more subordinated to the values expressed in it, and the kinds of research on risks and alternatives, which its use shows to be needed, become conducted more extensively.

d) Working for the growth of – and active collaboration among – movements that aspire to democratic values, including the protection of human rights, the full range of economic/social/cultural as well as civil/political rights recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and to strengthening of the values of democratic participation, so that consciousness grows about the plurality of research strategies that are needed to provide knowledge that would enable all democratic projects to become informed by scientific knowledge.

e) Organizing for the growth of movements, institutions and programs in which researchers, practitioners and citizens collaborate, including programs for educating citizens to be able to be intelligent participants in deliberations on science policy matters, for scientists to learn from citizens what they consider to be the principal problems and interests that need to be addressed, and how they experience the problems and perceive the causal networks that bring them about and maintain them. There is needed the participation of scientists, industry and the public to work out how to re-institutional science, and to create examples showing how democratic and multicultural participation might enhance science.

11) In your research proposal to the IEA, you mention ethical, economic and social values that, on one hand, maintain scientific objectivity against postmodern arguments, but, on the other, reject characterizations of this objectivity derived from Positivism. What are the disputed postmodern arguments and characterizations with a Positivist tint, and what results from excluding both these extremes?

“Positivism” and “postmodernism” are widely used terms, but rarely are they used precisely or univocally. So I’ll just refer to aspects of these views, without attempting to characterize them completely.

Regarding positivism, I criticize the view, which we find in many of the intellectual descendants of the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle of the 1930s, that (in my terms) there is no legitimate role for social/ethical values at either M₁ or M₃. This is the core of the widely held “positivist” claim that “science is value free.” In practice these positivists rarely made a distinction between these two moments, or (as I do) between adopting a strategy and accepting a theory; for them, what I diagnose as constraints on theories under decontextualizing strategies are built into their characterization of scientific theories. This had the consequence that the relationship between adopting decontextualizing strategies virtually exclusively and holding the values of technological progress remained effectively invisible.

The “postmodernist” view I criticize is highly sensitive to the role of the values of technological progress and their links with those of capital and the market in shaping contemporary science. It maintains that there is not a sharp distinction between cognitive and social/ethical values, and thus that social/ethical values can play legitimate roles at M₃, and it has the consequence that even well made evaluations of scientific theories and hypotheses are essentially marked by relativism. It denies that a significant distinction between objectivity and subjectivity can be upheld. Sometimes, this has been taken to justify rejecting much of established science simply on the ground that it has strong links the values of capital and the market.

My position, which avoids the two extremes, recognizes a legitimate role for social/ethical values at M₁, but not at M₃. It upholds the distinction between cognitive and other kinds of values, but recognizes that social/ethical values do play many legitimate roles in the conduct of research, and shows how this need not lead to relativism or subjectivism. It enables there to be a social/political critique of actual scientific practices without thereby making the cognitive appraisal of scientific theories (as distinct, e.g., of their being objects for research and their results being applied) a matter for social/political critique.

12) Still according to your research proposal, the seminars you held at the IEA might help to expand the theses included in your model. Could you give an example of this expansion?

The model of the interaction of science and values allows the possibility of there being a range of fruitful strategies (not limited to the decontextualizing strategies) each of which bears mutually reinforcing relations with holding a particular value-outlook. The seminars aimed to show that this is not just a logical possibility, by discussing alternative strategies that have already proved their fruitfulness in promising, if currently limited, ways. I myself have examined the case of agroecology in considerable detail.^[xvi] Its strategies bear mutually reinforcing relations to the value outlook of “social justice, democratic participation and ecological sustainability.”^[xvii] The strategies enable the empirical/theoretical investigation of agroecosystems dealing simultaneously with their productivity, sustainability, capacity to maintain biodiversity, their contribution to health of the agricultural community, and how they affect local culture, agency and values, often with a view to generating what the community itself determines to be a suitable and viable balance of these dimensions. Proponents of transgenics, e.g., often dismiss agroecology as simply expressing an ideological desire.^[xviii] The model represents that, although holding particular social/ethical values (that contest those of capital and market dominant in the mainstream) has close links with adopting agroecological strategies, this leaves untouched that judgments made at M₃ in agroecological research may accord with impartiality [see the  response to question 2). The significance of the model depends on the fruitfulness of cases like agroecology (and many others) being demonstrated in actual practice.

13) What is the content of the dossier on science and values that you and professor Pablo Mariconda are organizing with contributions obtained in the seminars?

The dossier begins with an article, jointly written by Pablo and me, that contains what we consider a mature and standardized version of the model of the interaction of science and values. We hope this will be useful, for – although the model dates back to the mid 1999s^[xix] – it has been refined and developed (and a lot of the terminology deployed has been changed) over the years in the course of numerous seminars organized by Scientiae Studia [philosophical association of scholars associated with the IEA research group that publishes the Scientiae Studia journal] here in São Paulo. The standardized version that we offer takes into account all these refinements and developments (and uses what has now become settled terminology), and points to places where further work is needed. In a second article, based in the model, I argue that how scientific research is to be understood today is open to two interpretations that I call “commercially-oriented technoscience” and “multi-strategy research.” This claim provides the structure for most of the dossier: several articles criticizing commercially-oriented technoscience, but in a way that recognizes the positive value of many technoscientific innovations; and others that aim to show the promise of multi-strategy research in the areas: social technology, agroecology, public health, and potential interaction between modern scientific research and traditional (indigenous) knowledge-gaining practices. (We hope that others will develop examples in many other areas of research, e.g., energy and communications.) Finally, in response to the fact that the model suggests limits to common conceptions of the rationality of science (that tend to be connected with positivism), there are a series of articles on the rationality of science, all in different ways attempting to explore how rationality marks scientific practices, but with different types of considerations coming to the fore at the different moments.

REFERENCES

Lacey, Hugh (1998) Valores e Atividade Científica. São Paulo: Discurso Editorial and Fapesp. (First edition of VAC-1)

––––  (1999) Is Science Value Free? Values and Scientific Understanding. London & New York: Routledge.

––––  (2006a) A Controvérsia sobre os Transgênicos: questões científicas e éticas. São Paulo: Editora Idéias e Letras.

––––  (2006b) “O Princípio de Precaução e a autonomia da ciência.” Scientiae Studia 4: 373–392.

––––  (2008) Valores e Atividade Científica 1. São Paulo: Associação Filosófica Scientiae Studia/Editora 34 –VAC-1.

––––  (2008a) “Ciência, respeito à natureza e bem-estar humano.” Scientiae Studia 6: 297-327.

––––  (2008b) “Aspectos cognitivos e sociais das práticas científicas.” Scientiae Studia 6:83-96.

––––  (2008c) “Crescimento econômico, meio-ambiente e sustentabilidade social: a responsabilidade dos cientistas e a questão dos transgênicos.” In Gilberto Dupas (ed.), Meio-ambiente e Crescimento Econômico: Tensões estruturais, pp. 91-130. São Paulo: Editora Unesp.

––––  (2010) Valores e Atividade Científica 2. São Paulo: Associação Filosófica Scientiae Studia/Editora 34. VAC-2

––––  (2011a) “A imparcialidade e as responsabilidades dos cientistas.” Scientiae Studia 9: 487-500.

––––  (2011b) “A interação da atividade científica, visões de mundo e perspectivas de valores,” in Eduardo R. Cruz (ed.), Teologia e Ciências Naturais: Teologia da criação, ciências naturais e tecnologia em diálogo, pp.127–147. São Paulo: Editora Paulinas.

––––  (2011c) Preface to Márcia M. Tait, Tecnociência e Cientistas: Cientificismo e Controvérsias na política de biossegurança brasileira, pp. 13-29. São Paulo: Editora Annablume.

––––  (2012a) “Pluralismo metodológico, incomensurabilidade, e o status científico do conhecimento tradicional.” Scientiae Studia 10 : 425–453.

––––  (2012b) “Las diversas culturas y la práctica de la ciencia.” In F. Tula Molina & G. Giuliano (eds.), Culturas Científicas y Alternativas Tecnológicas, pp. 133-169. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva.

––––  (2013) “Rehabilitating neutrality.” Philosophical Studies 162: 77-83.

Lacey, Hugh & Mariconda, Pablo (2013) “The Eagle and the Starlings: Galileo’s argument for the autonomy of science – how pertinent is it today?.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 43: 122–131.

Mariconda, P & Lacey, H. (2001) “A águia e os estorninhos: Galileu sobre a autonomia da ciência.” Tempo Social 13: 49-65.

^[i] VAC-1, cap. 3.

^[ii] VAC-1, cap. 2; VAC-2, cap. 11

^[iii] VAC-1, cap. 1; VAC-2, cap.1; Lacey (2006a: introdução; 2008b; 2011a)

^[iv] VAC-1, especialmente cap. 5; VAC-2, parte 1.

^[v] Lacey (2006a; 2008c; 2011c); VAC-2, parte 2

^[vi] VAC-2, parte 1; Lacey (2012a; 2012b)

^[vii] Lacey (2008a; 2011b; 2012b).

^[viii] E.g., Lacey (2008a).

^[ix] Lacey (2006a; 2008a; 2008c; 2011c)

^[x] My most detailed discussions of impartiality, neutrality and autonomy are in Lacey (1999: ch. 10; 2008a); VAC-2, cap.1. On neutrality, see also Lacey (2013).

^[xi] On autonomy, see my collaborative articles with Pablo Mariconda (Mariconda & Lacey, 2001; Lacey & Mariconda (2012).

^[xii] Lacey (2013).

^[xiii] VAC-2, cap. 2; Lacey (2008a)

^[xiv] Lacey (2008a; 2012b)

^[xv] Lacey (2006b)

^[xvi] Lacey (2006a); VAC-2, parte 2.

^[xvii] Lacey (2008a; 2011b; 2012a)

^[xviii] Lacey (2011c)

^[xix] Lacey (1998; 1999).

The advance of connectivity, artificial intelligence, and robots, among others, has led to the need for a significant process of requalification and redefinition of the roles played in various sectors of society, explains Peterson, who has been a visiting professor at the IEA since June, 2019. A general risk is that AI and robotics replace human jobs thus causing human unemployment. A particular risk is that this replacement is selective, e.g. replacing manual jobs which already mean low-income.

The researcher argues that all technologies are "ditropic" and can produce good and bad effects, or even both concomitantly, according to the way they are used. For his speech at the upcoming event, Peterson will use the analytical framework of "epiduction," a context-sensitive form of reasoning. The physical substrate of "epiduction" is the executive function primarily associated with the prefrontal cortex of the human brain.

Peterson's work and background are in logic, philosophy, psychology, and computer science. Until last year, he was a full professor of Computer Science at Shantou University in China.

Professor at the Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ and visiting professor at the IEA since March, his interdisciplinary studies mobilize referentials of communication, anthropology and critical theory, focusing on empirical research.

In the following interview to IEA’s journalist Flávia Dourado, Canevacci explains some of the concepts of his authorship, questions the idea of an alienating culture - a ‘standard determined by the economic and political structure’ - and proposes a relaxation of the classic scientific method through ‘reflective ethnography ‘, a methodological strategy that does not let itself stiffen by the rupture between subject and object.

Your works speak of a transition from the ‘industrial city’, focused on productivity, class conflicts and political dialectic, to the 'communicational metropolis', marked by 'multi-centrism' and by modifying the perception of space-time. Is that what the concept of ‘ubiquity’ is?

The dualistic logic of the industrial city was replaced by the multi-centrism of the communicational metropolis, in which the characteristic flexibility of digital culture prevails. This transformation is related to the size of ubiquity, which complicates the perception of space-time.

The person who passes through the network and the communicational metropolis can, in the same space-time, communicate with people from completely different contexts. This ubiquitous experience - unimaginable and nonexistent in the industrial city - raises enormous challenges for communication and ethnography: what kind of relationship with others does it cause? What about the issue of otherness? An ubiquitous connected (not collective) person is affirmed.

Before, in anthropology, the ‘other’ was the indigenous culture. But today I speak with the Bororo or the Xavante [indigenous peoples studied by Canevacci], who live in the state of Mato Grosso, through Skype or the website Aldeia Digital. They talk in Portuguese, sometimes in Spanish, but continue to speak Bororo and Xavante, and use the same digital technology as I ...

In the communicational metropolis, each person sets up an ‘other’, not as a radical alterity, but based on small differences. If, in the past, the concept of approval prevailed, in which everyone followed a pattern determined by the economic and political structure, currently the major challenge of communication and ethnography is to penetrate in each of these differences - differences that configure specific types of otherness and together form a patchwork, a glocal syncretic dimension that ranges in space and time.

Is it this possibility of going in different space-times that brings out the multividual?

The formative of industrial culture, always developing an identical identity to itself, no longer works. In digital culture, identities are not fixed but floating. The concept of multividual modifies the classical concept of the individual - a Latin word that  translates the Greek word ‘atomom’,which means indivisible. The multividual is divisible, plural and fluid. Ubiquitous. The same person may have a multiplicity of identities, various ’I’s, and so 'multividualizes' its subjectivity.

One symptom of this is the idea of gender. Male and female are no longer perceived as a biologically defined division. Gender is seen as a cultural construct that does not contain a binary, dualistic logic anymore. It is understood that it is possible to have a multitude of erotic sensual experiences.

Fashion is another example: the multividual is not represented by a specific, unique fashion style. It modifies its styles according to the different contexts in which it lies. This poses major challenges for the study of fashion, which should no longer be taken as something that manipulates, because each multividual chooses different elements and, from that, creates its own performance.

And what is the relationship between the emergence of this multividual and digital culture?

Ubiquitous decentralization of the individual is a type of identity that is characteristic of digital culture. The desire to live an internal otherness used to be shared only at specific times, as in carnival. Today, with the explosion of digital culture, this desire for otherness, of multivocal, can be lived all the time, anytime. One just has to get on the internet to be able to express coexisting differences and heteronomous styles of writing, representing and connecting.

This transitive person characterized by floating multividual ‘selves’, who are claiming themselves as ‘others’, has the advantage of use of digital technologies - technologies that become more widespread on the ease of use, the price reduction, the acceleration of languages and the possibilities of standalone edition.

Of course, the digital culture also brings security problems - such as fraud – to be fought. Because digital culture is part of a conflict, a dialogical, a tension that we need to solve.

So the manifestation of the multividual is linked to the emergence of a more horizontal communication, made ​​possible by digital culture?

Digital culture modifies the ‘communicational division of labor’ (expression inspired in the concept of social division of labor, proposed by Marx) between the narrator and who is narrated. The idea of ​​self-representation arises: people want to represent themselves, and no longer be represented. And, from anywhere in the world, they have the technological and cultural conditions to do so, and never grant a third party the right to represent them. This comes from the desire of each voice, narrating its own story. In comes the criticism of the status of ‘who has the power to represent whom’.

The dichotomy between who is representing on one side and who is represented on the other has dropped. This is the right that each person has to politically and aesthetically self-represent and also to represent who is representing them. That means putting in permanent crisis the dualistic and dichotomic view between nature and culture, male and female, good and evil, who represents and who is represented. Therefore, we need to develop differentiated logics of thought that allow to harness the potential that digital culture offers us.

You defend the adoption of a ‘reflexive ethnography’ in anthropological research. Does this epistemological shift emerge as an effect of the phenomenon of self-representation?

Self-representation changes ethnography profoundly. It becomes more reflective and dialogic. The interviewer is also interviewed. My Bororo and Xavante friends do research on me at the same time they are being surveyed and together we build a self-representation into which we put our personalities, experiences, emotions and values​​. The emotional involvement becomes a constitutive part of ethnographic strategy, because the researcher is part of the research, and not out of the analyzed context. Thus, one does not insist in objectivity related to the object so that the object is no longer the object: it is a subject in all its complexity and in dialogue with the researcher.

Self-representation means that, as an anthropologist, I can no longer represent the culture of the Bororo and Xavante or the outskirts of São Paulo, because both indigenous and ‘paulistano’ youth assert their right to represent themselves and to represent me as a researcher.

By giving up the policy of objectivity and assuming the principles of dialogism and reflexivity, isn’t the researcher at risk of being criticized for lack of scientific approach? How does academia deal with this issue?

The paradigm that underpins the scientific dimension is largely based on physics and Euclidean mathematics. But from the 1950s the post-Euclidean vision began to rise up in the exact sciences as well. In the laboratories of CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research), for example, the context in which the experiments are placed is part of the evaluation, because it is understood that the context modifies the result. Subjectivity and objectivity, universality and particularity are connected and are part of the results.

Pure objectivity was important in the past. Now what we need is to combine the aesthetic force of imagination and subjective experience with scientific accuracy by means of what I call ‘exact imagination’. Post-Euclidean logics...

The works created by architect Zaha Hadid illustrate very well the emergence of this post-Euclidean culture. She developed a type of digital elaboration able to create architectural fantasies that do not belong to our everyday geometric experience. She applies a hybrid selfgenerative multidimension in architectural diagonal forms that have never existed before and that are not based on classical Euclidean geometry, composed of square, circle etc.. Thus, Zaha creates an innovative metropolitan experience, challenging our eyes, accustomed to rectangular and pyramidal buildings with modernist form.

Still within the epistemological transformations linked to ethnography, could you explain your concept of ‘methodological stupor’?

The ‘methodological stupor’ is an innovative way to position your body and mind in one porous dimension to find the unknown. It is a practice to open self corporeality and prepare it for the encounter with the stranger, who, precisely because it is strange, is desired. The problem of this meeting is essential in ethnography. It may be a chance encounter with something that is very close, on Facebook or on the street, for example. Because sometimes, while surfing the internet or walking down the street, we find elements that create a kind of awe. And you have to be prepared when that meeting happens. You must be trained in time to face the unknown, which is both alluring and amazing. It is necessary to grasp the moment, which is unique and can escape. To develop an ethnography of the youth in São Paulo, focused on the desire for creative urban movement, it is important to implement the self-representation or the stupor as ubiquitous methodologies.

In your studies on digital culture, you rely on authors of critical theory linked to the Frankfurt School, including Kracauer, Adorno and Benjamin. This option seems contradictory if we consider that in the theories of communication the Frankfurt School is associated with the idea of the culture industry as a place of handling and disposal. Does this contradiction actually exist?

Adorno, Benjamin and Kracauer were the first to empirically study the mass culture that was rising. Adorno focused on the analysis of radio, cinema, music, and the authoritarian personality. He was a philosopher who was not just thinking, because he was also doing empirical research. Kracauer, by studying cinema of the 1920s, had already understood that self-representation was a new paradigm that new reproducible film technology offered.

Critical theory from the concept of approval is a superficial reading. Just as it is superficial to understand the cultural industry as an absolute form of mass. For Kracauer and Benjamin, for example, it was the possibility of inserting reproducible technology in release processes of the poor social classes, which could, from this technological resource, enjoy the aesthetic culture.

In recent years, Germany and the United States are seeing the rise of an innovative current that makes a different reading of critical theory. What is the mass media today? The concept of mass is dead, as well as the idea of ​​media as mediatior between cultural industry and the public. In digital culture, each one can develop its own narrative. The fundamental problem now is how to make a critically oriented empirical research on digital culture - a culture that is changing the mass media and prefiguring the concept of self-representation.

Related news

Art and Hacktivism in debate

The debut seminar will reflect on the theme approached by "Her", a romantic science fiction film which hit theaters earlier this year. Directed by Spike Jonze, the film tells the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely man who falls for the voice of the new, advanced operating system on his computer, called Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Equipped with an intuitive artificial intelligence, the program is capable of composing its own personality, reacting and expressing emotions.

The loving relationship between Theodore and Samantha will be the starting point to discuss the interactions between the contemporary man and technology, and more specifically love in the "post-human" era and the erotic expansion in digital culture.

The exhibitors of the meeting will be anthropologist Massimo Canevacci, visiting professor at the IEA-USP and professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, philosopher Olgária Matos, full professor at FFLCH and coordinator of the also recently created IEA-USP’s Research Group Humanities and the Contemporary World, and Renato Janine Ribeiro.

CYCLE

The cycle Life Today: Love, Art, Politics will comprise four seminars to be held from August to November. On the next meetings, Janine, Canevacci and Matos, all members of the Research Group The Future Questions Us, will discuss the relationship between performance art, life and death; the future of politics in the current context of profound changes in personal relationships; and the abandonment of metaphorical thinking in favor of literal language.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

The exhibitor will be the Italian researcher Tatiana Bazzichelli, who studies the relationship between artistic manifestations and the business of social media. The conference will be held in Italian with consecutive translation by Massimo Canevacci, visiting Professor at IEA.

At the event, Bazzichelli will talk about the conditions for hacker and artistic practices on Web 2.0 and how social networks can develop and incorporate these digital culture practices. Examples of network art and hacking in California and Europe that challenge the notions of power and hegemony will also be presented.

Bazzichelli is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Digital Media’s Innovation Incubator of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, and holds a PhD in Media Studies and Information from Aarhus University, Denmark. She is also a member of the curatorial team of Transmediale Festival Berlin and author of Networking. La rete come arte (2006) /Networking. The Net as Artwork (2008).

Canevacci is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and of Digital Art and Culture at Università Degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy. His studies focus on ethnography, visual communication, art, and digital culture. The research he has been developing at IEA, situated among these themes, includes four main conceptual frameworks: self-representation, ubiquity, visual fetishism, and critical and experimental theory.

British cognitive scientist Donald Peterson is the new visiting professor at the IEA. For an initial period of one year, he will develop the research project "Life in the Cognitive Era." Until last year, he was a full professor of Computer Science at Shantou University in China.

Peterson covers logic, philosophy, psychology, and computer science. During his stay, he will conduct seminar-series and prepare publications in the area of the project. People of all disciplines and at all levels will be welcome at the seminars. One seminar-series will be on Cognitive Life, concerning issues of welfare, work, health, and education in an era of AI, robotics, and 5G communications. Another will be on Cognitive Computing, concerning the architecture, applications, and significance of systems such as IBM Watson.

In research, Peterson will focus on his concept of "epiduction" (a form of practical reason), and its relation with modern data conditions, the human brain, machine augmentation, and welfare.

Cogtech

Cognitive technologies (cogtech) are influencing life and work, and "we need a critical understanding of their opportunities and risks," says Peterson. Examples of cogtech are artificial intelligence, adaptive systems, big data analytics, humanoid robotics, person recognition, personalizing learning systems, and virtual reality.

According to Peterson, cogtech is complemented by innovations in biometrics, nanotechnology, 3D-printing, quantum computing, and by systems such as cryptocurrency and blockchain. Regarding systems theory, the new era involves "a shift toward more open systems, and their positive and negative potential effects."

Conditions associated with this shift include mass data, rapid change, global connectivity, and the cyborg interdependence of humans and machines. "We are shifting our course toward new ways of living and working, and the social and cultural implications of this change are radical and immanent." In Peterson's view, the task of policy in the cognitive era is to direct the use of cogtech to beneficial effects, rather than to classify the relevant technologies as inherently good or bad.

Peterson explains that this field of study is necessarily interdisciplinary: requiring both technical and critical knowledge, as being both theoretical and practical. "It is theoretical because it requires analytical structures such as systems theory and context-modulated reasoning, and it is practical because its issues will impact employment, mental health, education, work, communication, and quality of life."

Profile

Peterson holds a PhD in Philosophy from University College London, a Master's degree in Foundations of Advanced Information Technology from Imperial College London, and a Master's degree in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of Edinburgh.

Before becoming a full professor of the Department of Computer Science at Shantou University, he was Associate Professor in Computer Science and Head of Division at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Technology at the University of London, and Lecturer in Cognitive Science and then in the Psychology of E-learning at the University of Birmingham. Peterson has previously inhabited two research labs: ECRC in Munich (The European Computer-Industry Research Center), and LKL (The London Knowledge Lab). He now joins an Institute of Advanced Study in the tradition established in Princeton in 1930 by Abraham Flexner. This tradition is deliberately multi-disciplinary, research-focussed, and, in the case of IEA-USP, oriented to social welfare as a practical outcome of research.

Peterson is the editor of "Forms of Representation: an Interdisciplinary Theme for Cognitive Science" (1996), which includes a chapter by Nobel Prize winner Herb Simon, co-editor of "Philosophy and Cognitive Science" (1993), and author of "Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy: Three Sides of the Mirror" (1990). He has also written 13 book chapters and published 10 articles in refereed journals.

Photo: Leonor Calasans / IEA-USP