A learned society ( / ˈ l ɜːr n ɪ d / ; also scholarly , intellectual , or academic society ) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline , profession , or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences . Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honour conferred by election.
24-577: The Accademia Cosentina ("Cosentian Academy" or "Telesian Academy" in English) is still an Italian accademia or learned society in Cosenza , Italy. It was founded in 1511–12 by Aulo Giano Parrasio and has a long and complex history, with several changes of name. The society was founded in Cosenza by Giovan Paolo Parisio ("Aulo Giano Parrasio") in late 1511 or early 1512, and was initially known as
48-488: A critical analysis of the biosciences and informatics. Studies of mathematical practice and quasi-empiricism in mathematics are also rightly part of the sociology of knowledge since they focus on the community of those who practice mathematics . Since Eugene Wigner raised the issue in 1960 and Hilary Putnam made it more rigorous in 1975, the question of why fields such as physics and mathematics should agree so well has been debated. Proposed solutions point out that
72-496: A particular subject or discipline, provided they pay their membership fees. Older and more academic/professional societies may offer associateships and/or fellowships to fellows who are appropriately qualified by honoris causa , or by submission of a portfolio of work or an original thesis. A benefit of membership may be discounts on the subscription rates for the publications of the society. Many of these societies award post-nominal letters to their memberships. The membership at
96-399: Is more of a description of an approach than an organised movement. The term is applied to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science who merely cite sociological factors as being responsible for those beliefs that went wrong. Imre Lakatos and (in some moods) Thomas S. Kuhn might be said to adhere to it. The strong programme is particularly associated with the work of two groups:
120-662: Is only useful in their practical everyday function to categorize and distinguish. Fundamental contributions to the sociology of mathematical knowledge have been made by Sal Restivo and David Bloor . Restivo draws upon the work of scholars such as Oswald Spengler ( The Decline of the West , 1918), Raymond Louis Wilder and Leslie Alvin White , as well as contemporary sociologists of knowledge and science studies scholars. David Bloor draws upon Ludwig Wittgenstein and other contemporary thinkers. They both claim that mathematical knowledge
144-434: Is socially constructed and has irreducible contingent and historical factors woven into it. More recently Paul Ernest has proposed a social constructivist account of mathematical knowledge, drawing on the works of both of these sociologists. SSK has received criticism from theorists of the actor-network theory (ANT) school of science and technology studies . These theorists criticise SSK for sociological reductionism and
168-535: Is still operative, despite the economic difficulties due to the lack of public subsidies, and continues its cultural promotion work yet today, with monthly events and conferences on literary, humanistic and scientific subjects. 39°17′12″N 16°15′42″E / 39.28667°N 16.26167°E / 39.28667; 16.26167 Learned society Most learned societies are non-profit organizations , and many are professional associations . Their activities typically include holding regular conferences for
192-455: Is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge. For comparison, the sociology of knowledge studies the impact of human knowledge and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and
216-804: The American Association for the Advancement of Science , specific to a given discipline, such as the Modern Language Association , or specific to a given area of study, such as the Royal Entomological Society . Most are either specific to a particular country (e.g. the Entomological Society of Israel ), though they generally include some members from other countries as well, often with local branches, or are international, such as
240-969: The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions or the Regional Studies Association , in which case they often have national branches. But many are local, such as the Massachusetts Medical Society , the publishers of the internationally known The New England Journal of Medicine . Some learned societies (such as the Royal Society Te Apārangi ) have been rechartered by legislation to form quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations . Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election. Some societies offer membership to those who have an interest in
264-1410: The World Association in Economics is free of cost. Following the globalization and the development of information technology, certain scholarly societies—such as the Modern Language Association—have created virtual communities for their members. In addition to established academic associations, academic virtual communities have been so organized that, in some cases, they have become more important platforms for interaction and scientific collaborations among researchers and faculty than have traditional scholarly societies. Members of these online academic communities, grouped by areas of interests, use for their communication shared and dedicated listservs (for example JISCMail ), social networking services (like Facebook or LinkedIn ) and academic oriented social networks (like Humanities Commons, ResearchGate , Mendeley or Academia.edu ). Sociology of science 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias The sociology of scientific knowledge ( SSK )
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#1732791289118288-481: The sociology of science argue that learned societies are of key importance and their formation assists in the emergence and development of new disciplines or professions. In the form of professional associations, they can assist in the creation of pathways to leadership. The World Association in Economics provides help to the members of the WAE on the following issues: Societies can be very general in nature, such as
312-441: The "Accademia Parrasiana". As in other accademie of the time, the principal studies were of literature and philology . Following the death of Parrasio, which may have been in 1522 or in 1534, the academy came under the control of Bernardino Telesio , who gave it a more scientific and practical direction; it was known as the "Accademia Telesiana". In 1544 it was suppressed by the authorities. Not long before Telesio died in 1588,
336-628: The ' Edinburgh School' ( David Bloor , Barry Barnes , and their colleagues at the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh ) in the 1970s and '80s, and the ' Bath School' ( Harry Collins and others at the University of Bath ) in the same period. "Edinburgh sociologists" and "Bath sociologists" promoted, respectively, the Strong Programme and Empirical Programme of Relativism (EPOR). Also associated with SSK in
360-506: The 1970s in self-conscious opposition to the sociology of science associated with the American Robert K. Merton , generally considered one of the seminal authors in the sociology of science. Merton's was a kind of "sociology of scientists," which left the cognitive content of science out of sociological account; SSK by contrast aimed at providing sociological explanations of scientific ideas themselves, taking its lead from aspects of
384-746: The 1980s was discourse analysis as applied to science (associated with Michael Mulkay at the University of York), as well as a concern with issues of reflexivity arising from paradoxes relating to SSK's relativist stance towards science and the status of its own knowledge-claims (Steve Woolgar, Malcolm Ashmore). The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) has major international networks through its principal associations, 4S and EASST, with recently established groups in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Latin America. It has made major contributions in recent years to
408-456: The Accademia dei Negligenti in about 1649; it remained active until his death in 1660. The Accademia dei Costanti was revived by Pirro Schettini from 1668 until 1678, when he died. It was restarted under the name Accademia dei Pescatori Cratilidi by Gaetano Greco in 1756, but again became inactive in 1794. In 1811 the society was again revived, through the efforts of Matteo Galdi ; it
432-457: The fundamental constituents of mathematical thought, space, form-structure, and number-proportion are also the fundamental constituents of physics. It is also worthwhile to note that physics is more than merely modeling of reality and the objective basis is upon observational demonstration. Another approach is to suggest that there is no deep problem, that the division of human scientific thinking through using words such as 'mathematics' and 'physics'
456-769: The presentation and discussion of new research results, and publishing or sponsoring academic journals in their discipline. Some also act as professional bodies, regulating the activities of their members in the public interest or the collective interest of the membership. Some of the oldest learned societies are the Académie des Jeux floraux (founded 1323), Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana (founded 1488), Accademia della Crusca (founded 1583), Accademia dei Lincei (founded 1603), Académie Française (founded 1635), German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (founded 1652), Royal Society (founded 1660) and French Academy of Sciences (founded 1666). Scholars in
480-1022: The scientific project; the objective of the researcher is to explain why one interpretation rather than another succeeds due to external social and historical circumstances. The field emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s and at first was an almost exclusively British practice. Other early centers for the development of the field were in France, Germany, and the United States (notably at Cornell University ). Major theorists include Barry Barnes , David Bloor , Sal Restivo , Randall Collins , Gaston Bachelard , Harry Collins , Karin Knorr Cetina , Paul Feyerabend , Steve Fuller , Martin Kusch , Bruno Latour , Mike Mulkay , Derek J. de Solla Price , Lucy Suchman and Anselm Strauss . The sociology of scientific knowledge in its Anglophone versions emerged in
504-419: The social context within which it arises. Sociologists of scientific knowledge study the development of a scientific field and attempt to identify points of contingency or interpretative flexibility where ambiguities are present. Such variations may be linked to a variety of political , historical , cultural or economic factors. Crucially, the field does not set out to promote relativism or to attack
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#1732791289118528-514: The society came under the direction of Sertorio Quattromani and was renamed the "Accademia Cosentina". It is not clear whether it had been active from the closure of 1544 to this time. The accademia was again closed down in about 1593. In 1608 Giovanni Battista Costanzo, the archbishop of Cosenza, re-opened the society as the Accademia dei Costanti, with a larger number of members from the church. It may have become inactive again after his death in 1617. Another archbishop, Giuseppe Sanfelice, founded
552-496: The work of Ludwik Fleck , Thomas S. Kuhn , but especially from established traditions in cultural anthropology (Durkheim, Mauss) as well as the late Wittgenstein . David Bloor , one of SSK's early champions, has contrasted the so-called 'weak programme' (or 'program'—either spelling is used) which merely gives social explanations for erroneous beliefs, with what he called the ' strong programme ', which considers sociological factors as influencing all beliefs. The weak programme
576-705: Was called the Istituto Cosentina until 1817, when royal permission was obtained to change the name to Accademia Cosentina. On 11 June 1871 the Accademia Cosentina founded the Biblioteca Civica, the public library of Cosenza, which remained inactive until it was officially inaugurated on 4 March 1898. In March 2012 the academy announced that it might have to cease all activity because of a total lack of funds; it had received €2000 in ministerial funding in 2008. The Accademia Cosentina
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