Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Recently, lively debates have emerged in the social sciences about how to think about the unexpected return of religion to the public sphere. This phenomenon has occurred not only in modernizing societies around the globe, but also in modern Western democracies. Scientific rationality and technical expertise have always been regarded as the most powerful forces for modernization. Yet it turns out that Western secularism is in central respects deeply Christian and even Protestant, and that there are multiple secularisms--at least one for each religion. How multicultural and democratic can Western (secular) modernization be in light of such circumstances? This presentation will sort out some of the implications of these discussions for philosophies of science. Speaker: Dr. Sandra Harding Sandra Harding is a Professor of Education and Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a philosopher. She taught for two decades at the University of Delaware before moving to UCLA in 1996.