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Science, hegemony and violence

Table of Contents

A Requiem for Modernity

Edited by

ASHIS NANDY

THE UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY
TOKYO, JAPAN

DELHI
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
1988

The United Nations University's Programme on Peace and Global Transformation was a major world-wide project whose purpose was to develop new insights about the interlinkages between questions of peace, conflict resolution, and the process of transformation. The research in this project, under six major themes, was co-ordinated by a 12-member core group in different regions of the world: East Asia, South-East Asia (including the Pacific), South Asia, the Arab region' Africa, western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Latin America. The themes covered were: Conflicts over Natural Resources; Security, Vulnerability, and Violence; Human Rights and Cultural Survival in a Changing Pluralistic World; The Role of Science and Technology in Peace and Transformation; The Role of the State in Peace and Global Transformation; and Global Economic Crisis. The project also included a special project on Peace and Regional Security.

Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP

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DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE HONG KONG TOKYO
NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM
MELBOURNE AUCKLAND
and associates in
BERLIN IBADAN

The United Nations University
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© The United Nations University, 1988

Printed in India by P. K. Ghosh at Eastend Printers, 3 Dr Suresh Sarkar Road, Calcutta 700014 and published by S. K. Mookerjee, Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110001

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: Science as a reason of state

Notes

2. Francis Bacon, the first philosopher of modern science: A non-western view

Notes

3. Science, colonialism and violence: A luddite view

Notes

4. Atomic physics: The career of an imagination

Notes

5. Violence in modern medicine

Notes

6. Science and violence in popular fiction: Four novels of Ira Levin

Notes

7. Reductionist science as epistemological violence

Notes

8. On the annals of the laboratory state

Notes

Contributors