Has 9/11 Introduced a Paradigmatic Shift in the Social Sciences' Approach to Islam and the West?
5 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2006
Date Written: December 12, 2006
Abstract
Although 9/11 is not a paradigmatic shift in the sense described by Thomas S. Kuhn, as "scientific revolution", the re-conceptualization of international and regional issues, it has introduced, sounds as a new vision concerning these issues. It has not only upset the old conceptions of international order, particularly those that have been used since the end of the Cold War, but it has also brought up some new "fields of thinking" to the social sciences. Therefore, it would be much difficult not to report to this event as a line of interruption, not only between two times or eras (before 9/11 and after it) while studying the international, the regional, or any local scene, but also between two worlds: Maybe these worlds are the West and the arabo-islamic, and maybe the division line concerns two notions of Mankind future: a democratic, modern, humanistic one, open up on huge, rational, reasonable changes and reforms, and an archaic, autistic, self-centered one, dominated on one side by hegemonic policies and on the other side by authoritative regimes and totalitarian thought.
Keywords: knowledge, September 11, scientific thought, Mead, Kuhn, Elias, Weber, Durkheim, Fromm, Arkoun, Malia, Touraine
JEL Classification: 000, Z00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation