Diogenes articles from March 2003

Diogenes archives from March 2003

Introduction: indications of the knowledge society.
March 22, 2003... Is `knowledge society' yet another empty slogan? More than ever, `knowledge is power'. But we can hardly affirm that the society we live in is based on the vigour of knowledge. The market price placed on knowledge fails to provide it with the...

Knowledge society or leisure society?
March 22, 2003... Such is the scale of information production today that the verb `to know' may be heretofore declined in the impersonal. A new `subject of knowledge'--the machine--is seen as removing from homo sapiens the so far uncontested role of `learned...

Educational challenges of the liquid-modern era.
March 22, 2003... A liquid modernity, where the traditional certainties have become fluid and blurred, presents a major challenge for education. The world is changing so quickly that homo sapiens, learning animal par excellence, can no longer rely on strategies...

Democracy de-realized.
March 22, 2003... In times of crisis, when democracies are under threat, our lessons of justice and equality are best learnt from those who are marginalized or oppressed. There could be hope for democracy if responses to the attacks of September 11, for example,...

Religion and knowledge.
March 22, 2003... The attacks of September 11 oblige us to revise a prevalent view of religion as harmless and incompatible with rational forms of knowledge. Three modes of knowledge coexist today: theological knowledge involves adhesion to a system of beliefs;...

Initiation society, learned society and knowledge society.
March 22, 2003... Knowledge is a social institution, a social activity, as well as the product of that social activity. All known societies incorporate several modes of hierarchical knowledge. Three styles of knowledge co-exist in the transitional societies of...

Learning and reason in the Muslim West: the case of Algeria.
March 22, 2003... A genealogy of the relationship between Islam and knowledge focusing on the Muslim West and, in particular, Algeria explains the current chaos within Muslim societies. The West, on its side, has difficulties understanding a cultural tradition...

Global cities in informational societies.
March 22, 2003... Modern cities have recently evolved as centres for material and intangible exchanges and this obliges us to rethink the urban scene. The passing from the industrial era to the new age of information has rendered obsolete the models envisaged by...

Reflections on paradigms of philosophizing.
March 22, 2003... Among the most recent unforeseen events of this modernity, those of 11 September 2001 exposed the dark side of globalization. If science reduces the whole universe to its one logic, philosophy retains a crucial role as a process of production...

Knowledge from outside: knowledge for `divertissement' and beyond.
March 22, 2003... Many cultures have had knowledge imposed from outside, whether by force or for reasons of power, to the detriment of their own endogenous knowledge and the wisdom developed throughout their history. Would Japan's acquisition of Western...

Flashes of a century: a breviary of images.
March 22, 2003... The 20th century bears witness to the extent to which the potential scale of destruction is proportional to the dimensions of human knowledge. Simultaneously, an ethical disarray grows prevalent within a civilization obliged to do away with the...