Closing Session

Penn collection
The Science of Information, 1870-1945: The Universalization of Knowledge in a Utopian Age
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Arts and Humanities
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Author
Fox, Robert
Contributor
Abstract

Robert Fox, University of Oxford Universal Knowledge as Utopia and Myth The Baconian aphorism that knowledge is power has been amply vindicated since the seventeenth century, as political, economic, and cultural leaders have sought to control access to information, typically in opposition to advocates of openness. In the period treated in this conference, those who believed that knowledge should be open to all faced the challenge of an unprecedented acceleration in the pace of publication, followed by a distinct "national turn" after the Great War as nations appropriated science in pursuit of their various interests. Contrary voices, in the International Committee on International Co-operation and H. G. Wells's idea of a universally accessible "World Brain", were frail. But after the second world war they found new expression in UNESCO. The history of universalist sentiment in science and scholarship reflects both the travails and the resilience of a dream that has endured against the odds. In our own age of the Internet and the World Wide Web, might the dream now have another hope of realization?

Advisor
Date of presentation
2017-02-25
Conference name
The Science of Information, 1870-1945: The Universalization of Knowledge in a Utopian Age
Conference dates
2023-05-17T17:33:53.000
Conference location
Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
YouTube recording of Robert Fox begins at 1:21:08.
Recommended citation
Collection