Responsibility and Leadership

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

1 to draw attention to significant dilemmas (not only moral) or antinomies (in the sense proposed by Turner) which pose challenges in the contemporary world
2 discussing the question of responsibility in the context of reflection on major contemporary issues: the different levels (individuals, small homelands, national and transnational communities) and the possibilities for action (including cooperation) in solving them
3 draw students' attention to the interconnectedness, complexity and multifaceted nature of various axiological, cultural, social, economic or environmental issues
4 raising students' awareness of the consequences of making rash judgments and developing the habit of critical thinking

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

1. Processes of modernisation, their totalitarian consequences and the search for solution.
2. Different aspects of globalisation and technological development and their negative (unintended) consequences.
3. Commodification of different ascpetcs of life inrelation to process of globalisation.
4. Auotonomy of different spheres of life (science, religion, culture) and multicultural aspect of contemporary societies.
5. Science for the future, limits of humanism, towards transhumanism (posthumanism).

Reading list

Obligatory

1. Adolf M., Stehr N., Knowledge, Routledge, London 2014.
2. Beck U., Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage, London 1992.
3. Mark B., Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institution and Representation, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2009.

Optional

1. Callon M., Lascoumes P., Barthe Y., Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy, MIT Press, Cambridge 2009.
2. Collins H., Evans R., Rethinking Expertise, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2007.
3. Fischer F., Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge, Duke University Press, Durham, NC – London 2000.
4. Fischer F., Democracy and Expertise: Reorienting Policy Inquiry, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009.
5. Fuller S., New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies, Polity Press, Cambridge 2000.
6. Grundmann R., Stehr N., Experts: The Knowledge and Power of Expertise, Routledge, London 2012.
7. Knorr-Cetina K., The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science, OUP, Oxford 1981.
8. Merton R.K., The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1973.
9. Scruton R., How to Think Seriously About The Planet. The Case For An Environmental Conservatism, Oxford University Press, 2012.
10. Stehr N., Knowledge Societies, Sage, London 1994.
11. Stehr N., The Fragility of Modern Societies: Knowledge and Risk in the Information Age, SAGE Publications, London 2001.
12. The Customization of Science: The Impact of Religious and Political Worldviews on Contemporary Science, eds. S. Fuller, M. Stenmark, U. Zackariasson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
13. Turner S.P., Liberal democracy 3.0. Civil Society in the Age of Experts, Sage, London 2003.
14. Turner S.P., The Politics of Expertise, Routledge, London 2014.