ef1da23cbc We can predict that anything in the constituted body of knowledge that is not translatable in this way will be abandoned and that the direction of new research will be dictated by the possibility of its eventual results being translatable into computer language. Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse. 403 Forbidden.. Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major perhaps the major stake in the worldwide competition for power. The atoms are placed at the crossroads of pragmatic relationships, but they are also displaced by the messages that traverse them, in perpetual motion. Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age. As I have already said, economic redeployment in the current phase of capitalism, aided by a shift in techniques and technology, goes hand in hand with a change in the function of the State: the image of society this syndrome suggests necessitates a serious revision of the alternate approaches considered. Source: The Postmodern Condition (1979) publ. The other the critical, reflexive, or hermeneutic kind by reflecting directly or indirectly on values or alms, would resist any such recuperation. A cybernetic machine does indeed run on information, but the goals programmed into it, for example, originate in prescriptive and evaluative statements it has no way to correct in the course of its functioning for example, maximising its own performance, how can one guarantee that performance maximisation is the best goal for the social system in every case.
When we examine the current status of scientific knowledge at a time when science seems more completely subordinated to the prevailing powers than ever before and, along with the new technologies, is in danger of becoming a major stake in their conflicts the question of double legitimation, far from receding into the background, necessarily comes to the fore. Dedicating oneself to catching up with Germany, the life goal the French president [Giscard dEstaing at the time this book was published in France] seems to be offering his countrymen, is not exactly exciting. A portion of the description would necessarily be conjectural. One can decide that the principal role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a giant machine. Take any civil law as an example: it states that a given category of citizens must perform a specific kind of action. If we wish to discuss knowledge in the most highly developed contemporary society, we must answer the preliminary question of what methodological representation to apply to that society. The Postmodern ConditionA Report on Knowledge.
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