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While in the beginning of the environmental debate, conflicts over environmental and technological issues had primarily been understood in terms of ‘‘risk’’, over the past two decades the relevance of ignorance, or nonknowledge, was emphasized. Referring to this shift of attention to nonknowledge the article presents two main findings: first, that in debates on what is not known and how to appraise it different and partly conflicting epistemic cultures of nonknowledge can be discerned and, second, that drawing attention to nonknowledge (...) in technology conflicts results in significant institutional effects and new constellations of actors in public debates. To illustrate and substantiate this political dynamics of nonknowledge we draw upon examples from the areas of agri-biotechnology and mobile phoning. In a first step, we develop in greater detail the concept of scientific cultures of nonknowledge and identify three such cultures involved in the social conflicts within the two areas. Subsequently, we analyze the specific dynamics of the politicisation of nonknowledge looking at the variety of actors involved and the pluralisation of perceptions and evaluations of what is not known. Then, we point out some of the institutional reactions to the political and cultural dynamics of scientific nonknowledge. We argue that the equal recognition of the diverse cultures of nonknowledge is a key prerequisite for socially legitimate and ‘‘robust’’ decision-making under conditions of politicised scientific nonknowledge. (shrink)

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I will trace the little known prehistory and parts of the better known history of CO2 by investigating some of the names it has been given from Antiquity to the present day. In Antiquity, the words pneuma or spiritus letalis designated both a supernatural force and an exhalation that emanated from certain caves. We will see how CO2 gradually came to be regarded as something natural, a gas and then substance.

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Nossa imagem da retórica é frequentemente marcada pelas figuras retóricas.O artigo mostra que elas não são uma parte pouco importante na estrutura complexa da retórica antiga.A parte mais interessante dela era o inventio, arte de descobrir os argumentos.Os tópicos, esquemas para produzí-los, ajudaram os antigos a falar sobre qualquer assunto, seja político,jurídico ou metafísico.

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A adoção do pensamento filosófico é frequentemente visto como um processo que deve ser levado a cabo com uma seriedade quase religiosa.Em contraste, o autor mostra com argumentos e exemplos históricos que formas de imitação jocosa, formas de paródia, desempenham um papel consideravel na tradição filosófica.O riso refresca e permite ao filósofo um novo começo.

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Material culture, strictly speaking, is substance culture. Nevertheless, studies on material culture are almost exclusively concerned with things. The specificities in the perception of substances and the related everyday practices are rarely taken into consideration. Although this can be explained by the history of anthropology, the bias towards associating material culture with “formed matter” is a foundational shortcoming. In consequence, particular perspectives on the material remain understudied, and the cultural relevance of substances as such is rarely taken into consideration. Taking (...) a perspective grounded in anthropology and phenomenology, this article intends to provide new approaches to substances that elucidate the particular modes of their perception, reveal their characteristics and reflect on particular notions implicit to substances. The final section of this contribution discusses two exemplary studies on substances and proposes transformation and incorporation as new fields of research that would contribute to a more explicit engagement with substances in material culture studies. (shrink)

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