Modern science’s domination of nature expresses a universally valid epistemic attitude.

Evidence

Modern Western science has certainly implemented in a particularly radical and unscrupulous way this ethos of violent or treacherous examination of nature in order to dominate it step by step. But, on the other hand, this historical form of thought in the natural sciences, which is familiar to us and which we of course take for granted, is based on a generally valid epistemic attitude that is required by the matter itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 605

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Horkheimer and Adorno’s domination-of-nature thesis is here recast as a philosophically necessary epistemic attitude rather than mere ideology or will to power.
• DEFINE: ‘Epistemic attitude’ names the pre-theoretical orientation toward an object that generates a science’s guiding questions.
• XREF: connects to: The natural sciences rest on a primary technological will to cultivate the earth. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 604; Natural science’s drive to dominate nature rests on a universally valid epistemic attitude — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2437; Universal quantifiability is a prerequisite for the domination of nature. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 608 (+14 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The natural sciences rest on a primary technological will to cultivate the earth. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 604; Natural science’s drive to dominate nature rests on a universally valid epistemic attitude — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2437; Universal quantifiability is a prerequisite for the domination of nature. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 608 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Natural science’s drive to dominate nature rests on a universally valid epistemic attitude #corroborates (0.97) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2437
• Reason’s apparent triumph over nature is really its obedient subjection to facts #complicates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 45
• Established science rationalizes the prevailing world without altering its existential structure. #complicates (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 611
• Scientific observation always occurs from within a specific social universe of discourse. #complicates (0.81) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 584
• All science necessarily functions as ideology because no thinker escapes subjective positioning #complicates (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 711
• Traditional ecological knowledge rests on the same empirical method as modern science #complicates (0.77) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 691
• Science’s trustworthiness rests on being intersubjective and collective #complicates (0.74) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 748
• Science must produce a legitimating philosophical discourse about its own rules #complicates (0.72) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 87