After nuclear war: possible worlds and the cult of expertise
Studies of the effects of nuclear war are common, and have been often analyzed; they have been seen as contemporary eschatologies or as evidence in the nuclear-arms debate. They are of interest, though, for another reason. Written by students from many fields, they constitute attempts to portray the geographical conditions of a possible, post-nuclear-war world. Explicitly, these accounts express the view that the world is composed of objects and their properties; that it is objectively knowable through the use of the scientific method by neutral observers; and that the results of such studies can and ought to be presented in a thoroughly neutral mode of discourse. Closer observation reveals that these accounts fall short of the Cartesian ideal. Current philosophical scholarship suggests that there is little reason to believe that an adequate account of the human world can be fashioned merely from a set of objects, properties, and relationships. A more adequate account of the effects of nuclear war must rest on a more adequate notion of possible worlds. The contextual and ethnographic approach of philosophers and anthropologists provides a possible basis for such a notion.
- OSTI ID:
- 6039407
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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