The world of research and innovation is no exception to a broader societal demand (at least in liberal democracies) for more direct participation of citizens in various areas of public and political life, as attested by the significant development of various forms of “citizen science” programs. Such inclusiveness is nowadays commonly considered a means to better align the outputs of scientific research and innovation with the values and needs of society, hence fostering a more humanistic science. This chapter discusses the cogency of this requisite by addressing both epistemological and political challenges raised by opening up the process of knowledge production to nonprofessional inquirers and stakeholders. It assesses the prima facie tension between the inclusion of stakeholders in scientific research and traditional expectations of objectivity and impartiality. It also challenges the valuation of culturally well-entrenched features of science such as the valuation of unpredictable and unforeseen applications of scientific developments. Finally, it identifies various challenges to be met to enable a more inclusive science to effectively reduce the gap between its outputs and society’s needs, such as the need for an evolution of the professional training of scientists and of incentives from scientific institutions.

The rediscovery that the Vienna Circle’s neopositivist philosophy of science was not an exercise in theory for theory’s sake, but regarded by some of its most prominent practitioners as closely related to ongoing struggles for the social, economic, and political transformation of society (in his North American exile Rudolf Carnap spoke of “scientific humanism”), has attracted the attention of feminist and anti-racist philosophers. This chapter seeks to establish that two doctrines also associated with neopositivism (and shared by Carnap and Otto Neurath) need not prove as rebarbative for contemporary activist scholars as they may appear initially. It is argued, first, that understood as a qualified adoption of Max Weber’s position their conception of scientific value freedom (better: scientific value neutrality) does not undermine their ambition that science and its philosophy serve their sociopolitical engagement, and, second, that their conception of value noncognitivism does not at all render discussions of nonepistemic normative matters meaningless, but only bars deciding them as intersubjectively binding on a priori philosophical or empirical scientific grounds. Joint deliberation is needed.

The concern of this chapter is with varieties of philosophical humanism and their own conceptions of the nature and significance of science. After an initial characterization of major themes in Renaissance humanism, it describes three main varieties that are evident in twentieth-century European philosophy – humanism as essentialism, humanism as rational subjectivity, and existential humanism. Different varieties of humanism are associated with different conceptions of science, some allied to the sciences, others antipathetic to them, while yet others offer subtler positions. The upshot is that there are different tales to tell about the relationship of (varieties of) philosophical humanism to (conceptions of) science, only some of which fit popular modern celebratory claims about a necessary alliance of humanism and science. If we take a wider look at the history of philosophy, we find ongoing experimentation with forms of humanism and explorations of diverse ways of understanding and evaluating scientific knowledge and ambitions. What we find is what we ought to expect of social, creative, epistemically sophisticated, self-expressive creatures: endless variety.

This chapter presents one of the most recent additions to the historical sociolinguistic toolkit, a community of practice (CoP). The discussion of definitions and delimitations of this concept places it in the ‘three waves’ of sociolinguistic research and builds comparisons and contrasts with two neighbouring frameworks: social networks and discourse communities. The focus moves on to the applications of CoPs in historical sociolinguistics. The dimensions of practice – joint enterprise (or domain), mutual engagement, and shared repertoire – are redefined for the purpose of historical sociolinguistics and illustrated with examples from studies which engage with the sociohistorical and cultural context of communication. We show how language change – or, indeed, resistance to change – may be observed through a CoP lens. Prolific contexts where the concept of a CoP has been fruitfully employed include letter writing, the production of manuscripts and early prints, professional discourse, trial proceedings, multilingual practices and online blogging.

The chapter explores the declaration of contraception as a human right within the United Nations, focusing on key events such as the International Conference on Human Rights in Tehran in 1968. The involvement of transnationally operating NGOs such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Population Council is highlighted. The narrative showcases the shift toward population control as a human right, despite opposition from such entities as the Catholic Church. The chapter delves into the resolutions and debates at the Tehran conference, emphasizing differing perspectives on population control as a human rights issue. It particularly highlights contributions from the opposing blocs in the Cold War and the Communist critique against what Soviet states understood as the fusion of human rights and Neo-Malthusianism. The chapter concludes by discussing a significant transition toward justifying population control programs in terms of human rights rather than just economic necessity, arguing that the fusion of human rights with population control in the 1960s marks a significant turning point in the global discourse on demographic policies and individual rights.

Chapter 8 observes the emergence of frontier tycoons toward the close of the nineteenth century, carried by a wave of “South Sea Romanticism” in literature and politics, propagated publicly by a pathos of drift and discovery. Fueled by insurgent demands of popular rights in the 1870s, grassroots expansionists claimed a “national right” to adventure and opportunity in the ocean frontier. Petty entrepreneurs of questionable reputation and ambivalent attitudes towards the law “opened” remote isles where state control faded. Others, like the entrepreneur Koga Tatsushirō who appropriated the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands in 1895, enjoyed governmental backing. Such island colonies were eventually absorbed by the empire’s corporate infrastructure and were refashioned as sandboxes for colonial administration. “Rogue entrepreneurs” meanwhile traveled as far as the Caroline Islands in Micronesia, where one businessman, operating below the government’s radar, eventually facilitated the installation of a Japanese South Seas Protectorate. The chapter argues that the Japanese empire’s modalities of expansion carried the imprint of these experiences.

This chapter argues against an interpretation of scientism according to which science determines the limits of objective thinking. Central to the argument is Kuhn’s distinction between normal and extraordinary science. Understanding science as normal science makes science the plausible basis for an “ism” that delimits what counts as objective thinking because normal science has epistemologically and sociologically attractive features. But understanding science this way undermines the idea that a fundamental part of science, extraordinary science, involves objective thinking. Understanding science in a way that includes extraordinary science vindicates extraordinary science. But science understood this way no longer possesses the attractive epistemological and sociological features which made science understood as normal science the plausible basis of an “ism.” So, science cannot constitute an “ism” that determines the limits of objective thinking without undermining a fundamental aspect of itself. The argument is placed within a larger frame, about how to understand the connection between science and humanism. The view that humanism should take the form of scientism is rejected in favor of a view of humanism that takes the presence of interpretation and criticism as fundamental but that embraces science by finding interpretation and criticism within science itself.

This chapter is an extended argument for the existence of value (including moral) properties in the natural world, refusing thereby the equation of nature with what the natural sciences study. The argument turns on considerations of agency, seeking to establish that we could not be said to have the agency we manifestly possess, if value properties were not in the world we inhabit. Appealing to considerations found in Gareth Evans about the nature of belief, the chapter extends those considerations to take in our notion of desires as well, and draws from that extension the chapter’s grounds for saying that only if there are value properties without can our states of mind within possess the motivational power that makes possible our agency.

Chapter 5 discusses how intensifying transpacific traffic along the Kuroshio affected Japan’s geopolitical situation in the mid nineteenth century. It argues that the so-called “opening” of Japan was a process that began at sea and crept ashore in peripheral locations such as the Yaeyama Islands of Ryukyu, where a mutiny on a “coolie” ship involved local authorities in a violent, international conflict. For decades, Japanese governments had been coping with naval incursions and weighed different strategies for defense reforms, though domestic controversies delayed these efforts. By 1853, the American quest for steam-powered access attracted new interest to land-borne coaling infrastructure across the Japanese archipelago, a pursuit that materialized with Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan, Ryukyu, and the Bonin Islands. The chapter shows how the shogunate and Japanese domains competed to reverse engineer steam engines and sailing technologies, and eventually to deploy their own steam-powered facilities to reclaim the strategically located Bonin Islands.

Chapter 7 discusses the emergence of new actors in the Kuroshio frontier over the decades after the shogunate’s retreat from the Bonin Islands. It observes that pirates, state officials, and scientists formed a triangle of frontier actors. The pirate Benjamin Pease vied for state approval of his local rule in the Bonins, but eventually it was individuals like the official-botanist Tanaka Yoshio or the Bonin settler Thomas Webb who helped showcase the colonial flagship project of the young Meiji empire. The relationship of state and commercial agents, as much as the swift reconfiguration of settler identities on the ground, reflected the physical fluidity and political instability of the contested ocean frontier. Taming this frontier was a project of ideological significance for Japan. Clarifying the state’s relationship with its new subjects by testing new forms of subjecthood was central to this process. The flagship colony in the Bonin Islands became the site of state-funded agrarian experiments centered on exotic fruits and medical plants. Showcased at agricultural exhibitions, these experiments underpinned the “enlightened” character of Japanese colonialism.

The Bush administration’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was marked by unprecedented criticism of Israel’s settlement policies and a shift in US diplomatic tone. Secretary of State James Baker’s 1989 AIPAC speech, urging Israel to ‘lay aside … the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel’, signaled a turning point in US-Israel relations. The speech drew a mixed reaction from American Jews, exposing growing divisions over Israel’s territorial policies. Some welcomed it as reaffirming longstanding US positions; others saw it as unfairly demanding Israeli concessions without matching Arab commitments. The administration’s stance intersected with broader geopolitical concerns, including Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel and US loan guarantees, complicating negotiations. This chapter explores the internal and external pressures shaping US policy during the late 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on Bush-era diplomacy, Israeli responses, and evolving dynamics within the American Jewish community. It highlights a pivotal moment in US-Israel relations and its impact on the peace process.

The epilogue begins with the reversion of the Bonin Islands to Japan in 1968, after twenty-three years of US postwar occupation. Reflecting on imperial nostalgia and the meanings attributed to a rising Pacific for the future of Japan, it returns to the book’s initial question about the Pacific’s place in the archipelago’s history. It argues that the ocean today is an “unending frontier,” a cognitive mode engraved in both the promise of continued economic expansion and in the hopes for a more sustainable economy. The effects of climate change raise new questions about the origins of industrial modernity. The epilogue suggests conceptual models inspired at ocean currents to rethink diachronic historical causations and challenge teleology. With the first industrial revolution in Asia, Japan’s imperial emergence lives in the upstream of present ecological transformations. Studying the historical processes that direct state and industry interests to specific places within the dynamic seascapes of currents, habitats, and mineral deposits, embed the human relationship with the ocean in its historically grown, volumetric dimension.

Often regarded as comprehensive, impartial and authoritative works, monolingual dictionaries of the standard variety of English have never been neutral repositories of vocabulary. Instead, they have acted as vehicles for ideologies of one sort or another, transmitting societal values as well as linguistic information. All dictionary-makers make decisions on whose and which words to include and to exclude; equally all gather and process these words in ways that influence their presentation to the dictionary-user, employing editorial methods and technological means that have varied from one period to another. This chapter focuses on Johnson’s Dictionary and successive versions of the Oxford English Dictionary in an historically organised account of dictionaries to the present day, noting the under-representation in these two works of women as language-producers. It also discusses editions of the Webster dictionaries, of twentieth-century desk dictionaries before and after the introduction of corpus-based lexicography, and online dictionaries.