Introduction

The Centre for Research on Social Climate was set up in June 2009 to investigate how social conventions frame and constrain human behaviour. Such conventions are universal in daily life and they are anchored in a given social climate – the collection of opinions, experiences and values at a given time and in a given context. One example of such a convention is the way the human being is characterised and defined in scientific discourse. Various concepts and metaphors are used in such discourse today, for example the machine/animal/computer metaphor. Such metaphors have strong suggestive power - sometimes in a rather negative sense, as they focus attention on a selection of characteristics and thus often convey a one-sided picture. Moreover, these concepts tend to be a reflection of recent views or correlates of advances in technology and thus stand and fall with their public prominence at a given point in time. The centre seeks to investigate how such conventions and metaphors influence our view of the human being and how they inform and shape people’s behaviour.

The centre also addresses issues of social climate in a more general sense. In this context it provides room for research into the methods of scientific discovery, in particular the opportunities and limitations of the experimental approach. Phenomena such as consciousness or intentionality, for example, are matters of first-person experience, yet the underlying understanding often is that they can only be properly explained through a third-person experimental approach. How do we arrive at such conventions and how do they shape and influence our understanding of a given phenomenon? The centre provides room to explore these issues.

For more information please contact Dr. Ulrich Weger:
U.Weger@kent.ac.uk
+44 (0)1227 827374