Who Is the Scientist-Subject ?

Au cours de sa résidence Esha Sha vient de publier « Who Is the Scientist-Subject ?» ( Routledge, mai 2018) qui explore deux débats différents de l’histoire et de la philosophie des sciences de la vie.

Présentation ( en anglais) de l’éditeur:

« This book explores two disparate sets of debates in the history and philosophy of the life sciences: the history of subjectivity in shaping objective science and the history of dominance of reductionism in molecular biology. It questions the dominant conception of the scientist-subject as a neo-Kantian ideal self - that is, the scientist as a unified and wilful, self-determined, self-regulated, active and autonomous, rational subject wilfully driven by social and scientific ethos - in favour of a narrative that shows how the microcosm of reductionism is sustained, adopted, questioned or challenged in the creative struggles of the scientist subject.

 The author covers a century-long history of the concept of the gene as a series of "pioneering moments" through an engagement with life-writings of eminent scientists to show how their ways of being and belonging relate with the making of the science. The scientist-self is theorized as fundamentally feeling, experiencing and suffering subject split between the conscious and unconscious and constitutive of personality aspects that are emotional/psychological, "situated" (cultural and ideological), metaphysical, inter-subjective, and existential at the same time.

 An engaging interdisciplinary interpretation of the dominance of reductionism in genetic science, this book will be of major interest to scholars and researchers of science, history and philosophy alike.”

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