Edge of Knowing

Huub Dijstelbloem is professor of philosophy of science, technology, and politics and director of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He is co-director of the UvA research priority area Shaping Interfaces between Science and the Public and co-founder of the Platform for the Ethics and Politics of Technology. His current research concerns the politics of borders, migration and long-term climate policy. Previously, he was affiliated to the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and the Rathenau Institute. At the WRR, he advised the Dutch government on food policy, international security, European cooperation and climate justice. At the Rathenau Institute, he advised the government and stimulated public debate on emerging technologies, privacy and information technologies, and biomedical developments. After having worked as an attorney-at-law in Amsterdam and New York, Sanne decided to follow her true passion — writing. She has authored five non-fiction books, she has co-edited two essay collections and has written innumerable articles for newspapers and magazines. Currently she is a contributing writer for Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer and Dutch newspaper NRC. Her most recent, critically acclaimed book, Pijn - een expeditie naar onbestemd gebied (Pluim, 2023) deals with the complexities of chronic pain from a scientific, societal and personal perspective. During the years 2024-2025 Sanne was the first journalist-in-residence at the IAS.

• Introduction: Advanced Research into Complex Scientific and Societal Issues 1. ‘The IAS as a Motor Block of Creativity’: On the Benefits of a University-Based Institute for Advanced Study 2. ‘No Pressure Is Maximum Pressure’: On Science, Research and Society 3. Pioneering Research 4. A Journey through Knowledge Infrastructures 5. ‘No Duties, Only Opportunities’: All Paths Pointing towards Complexity 6. The Complex System Approach to Psychology 7. ‘Broccoli Pizzas Don’t Help’: On Health Complexity 8. ‘Give Me Reasons’: Why Models Should Never Be More Than Tools: On Ecology and Complexity 9. Complexity and AI 10. The Mosaic of Causality: A Modest Autoethnography 11. Measurement across the Sciences 12. Matters of Concern, Modes of Inquiry: On the Formation of Empirical Ethics 13. Emergence – Living on Edges and Bridges 14. ‘Don’t Fall in Love with Your Model’: On Computational Science and Complexity 15. ‘The Glue of Complexity’: On Epidemiology and Interdisciplinarity 16. The Poetry of Absence: On Art, Science and the Landscape of Affordances 17. ‘There Is No Alternative to Optimism’: On Sustainability and the Future of Energy 18. ‘Creating an Epistemic Counter Power’: The AI, Media & Democracy Lab 19. Babies, Science and Future Generations 20. Sparks: Notes from a Journalist-in-Residence 21. ‘Opening the Shutters’: A Conversation with an ‘Academic Entrepreneur’ on Social Network Analysis 22. The Fair Test: Network Approaches in Psychology 23. Urban Mental Health