Enabling Knowledge : Is Liberty a Daughter of Knowledge?

The theme I would like to explore in this presentation concern the multiple linkages between knowledge, civil society, governance, and democracy. I will place this general set of questions into the context of whether or not the these linkages are co-determined by a an enabling knowledgeability of modern actors -- stressing growing chances of reflexive cooperation in civil society organizations, social movements and perhaps a growing influence of larger segments of society on democratic regimes. But my specific purpose has to be more modest. Access to and the command of knowledge is stratified. I will explore three of these barriers and hurdles of access to knowledge and ask: (1) Is it possible to reconcile expertise and civil society, (2) it is conceivable to reconcile civil society and knowledge as a private good; finally, I will ask, are the social sciences and the humanities a source of enabling knowledge? In an essay in the New York Review of Books (November 18, 2004, p. 38), the molecular biologist Richard Lewontin maintains that “the knowledge required for political rationality, once available to the masses, is now in the possession of a specially educated elite, a situation that creates a series of tensions and contradictions in the operation of representative democracy.” Has therefore the shared optimism by the Philosophers of the French Enlightenment, in particular of Condorcet about the role of knowledge not only in overcoming poverty, violence and ignorance but also in building a sustainable democratic society been destroyed (cf. Jones, 2004:16-63)? By the same token, the English chemistry Nobel laureate Harry Kroto in a recent opinion piece in the Guardian (May 22, 2007, Education 1-2) denounces the UK government for wrecking British science and science education. And all of this in the face the “need for a general population with a satisfactory understanding of science and technology [that] never has been greater.” Kroto who is now researching and teach
The original publication is available at JAIST Press http://www.jaist.ac.jp/library/jaist-press/index.html
Proceedings of KSS'2007 : The Eighth International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences : November 5-7, 2007, [Ishikawa High-Tech Conference Center, Nomi, Ishikawa, JAPAN]
Organized by: Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
identifier:https://dspace.jaist.ac.jp/dspace/handle/10119/4100