Book-in-Brief: Epistemological Bias
in the Physical & Social Sciences
Edited By Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
Paperback 25 Pages
ISBN: 9781565645929
Publisher: The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
This is The Summary of Epistemological Bias In The Physical & Social Sciences
The question of bias in methodology and terminology is a problem that faces researchers east, west, north and south; however, it faces Third World intellectuals with special keenness.
For although they write in a cultural environment that has its own specific conceptual and cultural paradigms, they nevertheless encounter a foreign paradigm that attempts to impose itself upon their society and upon their very imagination and thoughts. When the term developmental psychology for instance is used in the West Arab scholars also say developmental psychology, when applied psychology is mentioned they hurry to use the same term etc.
Why not establish a new science with its own mechanisms, methodologies and points of reference to deal with epistemological biases and open up the gate of ijtihad with respect to them? This collection of papers aims to discover some of the biases latent in our terminology, methodologies, research tools, and conceptual principles, and to propose alternative ones marked by a greater degree of independence and neutrality.
This is not to belittle the human value of the West's creative contributions but to emphasize the danger of making it the ultimate point of reference and then trying to continuously play catch up with it.
About The Author
Professor Abdel-Wahab Mohammad Ahmad Elmessiri, born in 1938 AH, in the city of Damanhour. He was a professor of English and comparative literature, an Egyptian thinker, one of the critics of western modernity, and a pro of founding an 'Islamic' version of modernism.
He has been brought up in a countryside wealthy family, and has been educated in the elementary and secondary schools in the same ton where he was born.
He graduated in 1959 and appointed as a tutor in English literature. In 1961, he left to the United States to continue his higher studies. He achieved his master's degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University in 1964 and earned his Ph.D. degree from Rutgers University in English and American comparative literature in 1969.
He wrote many articles and dialogues in both Arabic and English in different magazines and newspapers.
He has many books, Most Famous of Them Are:
Zionism and violence
Enlightenment and its contradictions
Israel, Base of Western Imperialism
Israel and South Africa
He passed away in 2008 AH.
978-1565645929
Weight: 95