Knowledge through Concepts (provisional title)

Mieke Bal

A concept, if we may believe the dictionary, is something conceived in the mind; a thought, notion; a general idea covering many similar things derived from study of particular instances; Synonym: see IDEA. <outbind://28/#_ftn1> [1] In the preface to her book “D'une science à l'autre”, devoted to the interdisciplinary mobility of concepts traveling between the sciences, Isabelle Stengers helpfully states the purpose of probing traveling concepts. She announces that her book seeks to explore the ways the sciences can avoid the Scylla of a false purity and disinterestedness, and the Charybdis of arbitrariness and loss of interest, both often said to threaten after the traditional ideals have been unmasked as empty pretensions. As a remedy for the pain of the loss of innocence - and the loss of neutrality and disinterestedness - her book, she continues, offers concepts. Not as a glossary, but as theoretical issues, hotly debated and apt to be misunderstood and to help the sciences along. Concepts as issues of debate. My contribution will focus on concepts in this sense; as tools for interdisciplinarity in those disciplines where interpretation is a major activity and

"theory" used to be the methodological grounding.