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Ludvig Goldschmidt Pedersen - New PhD student at the department for Philosophy and History of Ideas

Ludvig Goldschmidt Pedersen is writing a PhD about scientific virtues in the Danish bureaucracy from 1885 to 1942. I hold a Master’s degree in Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought from University College London and Queen Mary University and a Bachelor’s degree in History of Ideas and Cultural Analysis of Society and Economy from Aarhus University.

My PhD project investigates the self-justification of unelected officials responsible for Danish fiscal policy from 1885 to 1942. During this period, unelected state officials in Denmark began to legitimize themselves through the invocation of claims to personal detachment and objectivity.  By uncovering the way in which the Danish state apparatus utilized emerging scientific vocabulary, this project will investigate the intricate mutual influence that the development of the modern state and democracy have had on scientific methodology and the ethos of the scientist. Debates around the notion of objectivity, responsibility, expertise, and the role of parliament in government, will be the starting point for analysing central problems related to state formation in Denmark from Provisorietiden until K.H. Kofoeds reform of the finance ministry in 1942. The main thesis of the project being that objectivity replaced notions of bourgeois class-exclusive virtues as the raison d’être of the Danish bureaucracy during this period.


Contact:

Ludvig Goldschmidt Pedersen
Institut for Kultur og Samfund - Afdeling for Filosofi og Idéhistorie
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7
bygning 1465, 630
8000 Aarhus C

lgp@cas.au.dk

Mobil: +4520439084