-person singular and plural – the ‘I’ and the ‘we’ – from the perspective of contemporary work in biology, cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In doing so, I suggest that Kratochwil’s thick constructivism at once is too radical and too conservative. It is too radical because it neglects the fact that the feelings, sentiments and emotions that provide the motivations for much of the behaviour he seeks to explain are not ‘floating freely’ (to borrow a term from a proponent of a rather ‘thin’ constructivism) but are embodied in and experienced by biological agents. Someone has
3 ONE Biology and the drive for human improvement In this chapter, we begin with a brief introduction to the recent developments in the biological sciences. We go on to examine how these are joining with older projects to improve the human condition. We review the origins of these projects in the natural yearning for a utopia, free from misery, disorder and disease. We then trace the ascendency of developmental psychology and ‘infant determinism’ which has always been a key part of the project of human improvement. The application of molecular biology and
25 TWO How knowledge gets made in neuroscience and molecular biology In the preface and opening chapter of the book, we outlined the ways in which technological biologies have joined forces with the enduring project of human improvement. We have hinted that the way biology has flourished of late has been, to a significant degree, a product of a mutually reinforcing configuration of alliances and networks which buttress the biotechnological research agenda, and which also serve to fuel particular ways of thinking about deviance and risk. This chapter
This volume and its companion, The New Dynamics of Ageing Volume 1, provide comprehensive multi-disciplinary overviews of the very latest research on ageing. Together they report the outcomes of the most concerted investigation ever undertaken into both the influence shaping the changing nature of ageing and its consequences for individuals and society.
This book concentrates on four major themes: autonomy and independence in later life, biology and ageing, food and nutrition and representation of old age. Each chapter provides a state of the art topic summary as well as reporting the essential research findings from New Dynamics of Ageing research projects. There is a strong emphasis on the practical implications of ageing and how evidence-based policies, practices and new products can produce individual and societal benefits.
In recent years, new areas of biology, especially epigenetics and neuroscience, have enthralled the public imagination. They have been used as powerful arguments for developing social policy in a particular direction, from early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children to seeking ‘biomarkers’ as identifiers of criminality.
This timely book, written by leading commentators, critically examines the capabilities and limitations of these biotechnologies, exploring their implications for policy and practice.
The book will enable social scientists, policy makers, practitioners and interested general readers to understand how the new biologies of epigenetics and neuroscience have increasingly influenced the fields of family policy, mental health, child development and criminal justice.
The book will facilitate much needed debate about what makes a good society and how best to build one. It also draws attention to the ways that the uncertainties of the original science are lost in their translation into the everyday world of practice and policy.
This unique book represents the first multi-disciplinary examination of ageing, covering everything from basic cell biology, to social participation in later life, to the representations of old age in the arts and literature.
A comprehensive introductory text about the latest scientific evidence on ageing, the book draws on the pioneering New Dynamics of Ageing Programme, the UK’s largest research programme in ageing. This programme brought together leading academics from across the arts and humanities, social and biological sciences and fields of engineering and medical research, to study how ageing is changing and the ways in which this process can be made more beneficial to both individuals and society.
Comprising individual, local, national and global perspectives, this book will appeal to everyone with an interest in one of the greatest challenges facing the world – our own ageing.
This collection brings together leading figures in the study of international relations to explore praxis as a perspective on international politics and law. With its focus on competent judgments, the praxis approach holds the promise to overcome the divide between knowing and acting that marks positivist international relations theory.
Building on the transdisciplinary work of Friedrich Kratochwil – and with a concluding chapter from him – this book reveals the scope, limits and blind spots of praxis theorizing.
For anyone involved in international politics, this is an important contribution to the reconciliation of theory and practice and an inspiration for future research.
As individuals increasingly seek ways of accessing, understanding and sharing data about their own bodies, this book offers a critique of the popular claim that ‘more information’ equates to ‘better health’. In a study that redefines the public, academic and policy related debates around health, bodies, information and data, the authors consider the ways in which the phenomenon of self-diagnosis has created alternative worlds of knowledge and practises which are often at odds with professional medical advice. With a focus on data that concerns significant life changes, this book explores the potential challenges related to people’s changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over, data shifts.
This book offers an analysis and summary of the uses, abuses and limitations of attachment theory in contemporary child welfare practice.
Analysing the primary science and drawing on the authors’ original empirical work, the book shows how attachment theory can distort and influence decision-making. It argues that the dominant view of attachment theory may promote a problematic diagnostic mindset, whilst undervaluing the enduring relationships between children and adults.
The book concludes that attachment theory can still play an important role in child welfare practice, but the balance of the research agenda needs a radical shift towards a sophisticated understanding of the realities of human experience to inform ethical practice.
