Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 05 The twentieth century profoundly altered the relationship between scholarship, politics, and society. The unprecedented destructive capacity demonstrated during the two World Wars—culminating in genocide, strategic bombing, and nuclear weapons—led many intellectuals to question whether scientific and scholarly activity could be regarded as morally neutral. Organized knowledgeContinue reading “Excursus 103 – The Moral Responsibility of Scholarly Communities”
Tag Archives: institutions
Excursus 063 – On Knowledge and Power
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The relationship between knowledge and power has long occupied philosophers, political theorists, and historians of science. Yet the two concepts are easily conflated. Knowledge may confer power by enlarging the range of possible actions, but it is not itself a form of political domination. To distinguishContinue reading “Excursus 063 – On Knowledge and Power”
Excursus 048 – On Insiders and Outsiders in Scientific Innovation
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 Scientific knowledge depends upon institutions. Universities, academies, journals, and professional societies preserve standards of evidence, refine methods, and transmit accumulated understanding from one generation to the next. Without such institutions, science could neither maintain continuity nor achieve collective progress. Yet the same institutions that preserve knowledgeContinue reading “Excursus 048 – On Insiders and Outsiders in Scientific Innovation”
Excursus 045 – On the Biological and Institutional Senses of Work
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Discussions of work commonly refer to institutionally organized human productive activity rather than to productive activity in the broader biological sense. This distinction is easily overlooked, leading social institutions to be credited—or blamed—for conditions that arise from more fundamental biological constraints. The necessity of productive activityContinue reading “Excursus 045 – On the Biological and Institutional Senses of Work”
Hossein Jorjani 