Rethinking Social Constructivist Theories of Science
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Origin of Sociology As a Discipline
NPTEL – Humanities and Social Sciences – Introduction to Sociology Lecture 1: Origin of Sociology as a Discipline Sociology is the study of human social life. Because human social life is so expansive, sociology has many sub-sections of study, ranging from the analysis of conversations to the development of theories to try to understand how the entire world works. This lecture will introduce you to sociology and explain why it is important, how it can change your perspective on the world around you, and give a brief history of the discipline. What is Sociology? The social world is changing. Some argue it is growing; others say it is shrinking. The important point to grasp is: society does not remain unchanged over time. As will be discussed in more detail below, sociology has its roots in significant societal changes (e.g., the industrial revolution, the creation of empires, and the enlightenment of scientific reasoning). Early practitioners developed the discipline as an attempt to understand societal changes. Some early sociological theorists (e.g., Marx, Weber, and Durkheim) were disturbed by the social processes they believed to be driving the change, such as the quest for solidarity, the attainment of social goals, and the rise and fall of classes, to name a few examples. While details of the theories that these individuals developed are discussed in the last module, it is important to note at this point that the founders of sociology were some of the earliest individuals to employ what C. Wright Mills (1959) labeled the sociological imagination: the ability to situate personal troubles within an informed framework of social issues. -
The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer's Cybernetic Informatics
The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer’s Cybernetic Informatics Andrew Pickering University of Illinois Department of Sociology Urbana, IL 61801 [email protected] Cybernetics and New Ontologies: An interview session with Andrew Pickering Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen [email protected] The Steno Institute University of Aarhus Working Papers from Centre for STS Studies Department of Information & Media Studies University of Aarhus Published by The Centre for STS Studies, Aarhus 2006. Editorial board: Peter Lauritsen, Simon Kiilerich Madsen, Finn Olesen. Andrew Pickering: The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer’s Cybernetic Informatics Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen: Cybernetics and New Ontologies: An interview session with Andrew Pickering © The authors, 2006. Printed at Fællestrykkeriet for Sundhedsvidenskab, University of Aarhus. Cover design: Annette Bjerre Design. ISBN 9788791386121 (print) ISBN 9788791386138 (web) The Centre for STS Studies Department of Information & Media Studies Helsingforsgade 14 DK-8200 Aarhus N Tel: +45 8942 9200 Fax: +45 8942 5950 [email protected] http://imv.au.dk/sts The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer’s Cybernetic Informatics Andrew Pickering University of Illinois Department of Sociology [email protected] This essay derives from a larger project exploring the history of cybernetics in Britain in and after World War II.1 The project focusses on the work of four British cyberneticians—Grey Walter, Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer and Gordon Pask; here I focus on Stafford Beer, the founder of the field he called management cybernetics, and his work in informatics.2 Anthony Stafford Beer was born in London in 1926. He joined the British Army in 1944 after just one year as an undergraduate in London, and served in India and Britain. -
Syllabus for 711
S&TS/History 711 Fall 2009 Introduction to Science and Technology Studies Michael Lynch & Kathleen Vogel M, 2:30-4:25 pm Rockefeller B-16 Office hours: Kathleen Vogel: M, 10-12 noon in 154 Uris, T, 12- 1pm, 330 Rockefeller, other times by appointment; tel: 255-2248; email: [email protected] Michael Lynch: Monday 11:10-12:10; Tuesdays & Thursdays 4:15-5:15, or by appointment; tel: 255-3810 (Dept. Office); email: [email protected]. This course is designed to provide newcomers to S&TS an overview of some of the major themes and issues in the field, and an opportunity to investigate how scholars in the field go about their work. Requirements: In addition to active participation in weekly class discussions, after the first few weeks of the course, students will sign up to lead discussion on particular topics. All students will be expected to prepare in advance of each class a 2-3 page synopsis of the week’s reading, identifying arguments, common themes, oppositions, and issues worthy of further consideration. The roster of reading assignments below lists required and recommended sources. Students should read required sources in preparation for class discussion on the day they are listed. Recommended sources can enhance participation in discussions, and are listed for further reference (for example, for term papers). A term paper is required of at least 5,000 words. It should synthesize some of the issues encountered in the course, and bring them to bear on a relevant topic of the student’s choosing. The deadline will occur during exam week (exact date TBA). -
The Practical Turn' David G
8 The Practical Turn' David G. Stern What is Practice Theory? What is a Practice? What is "practice theory"? The best short answer is that it is any theory that treats practice as a fundamental category, or takes practices as its point of departure . Naturally, this answer leads to further questions . What is meant by "practices" here? What is involved in taking practices as a point of departure or a fundamental category, and what does that commitment amount to? And what is the point of the contrast between a practice-based theory and one that starts elsewhere? Perhaps the most significant point of agreement among those who have taken the practical turn is that it offers a way out of Procustean yet seemingly inescap- able categories, such as subject and object, representation and represented, con- ceptual scheme and content, belief and desire, structure and action, rules and their application, micro and macro, individual and totality . Instead, practice the- orists propose that we start with practices and rethink our theories from the ground up. Bourdieu, for instance, insists that only a theory of practice can open up a way forward : Objective analysis of practical apprehension of the familiar world . teaches us that we shall escape from the ritual either/or choice between objectivism and subjectiv- ism in which the social sciences have so far allowed themselves to be trapped only if we are prepared to inquire into the mode of production and functioning of the practical mastery which makes possible both an objectively intelligible practice and also an objectively enchanted experience of that practice . -
The Cybernetic Brain
THE CYBERNETIC BRAIN THE CYBERNETIC BRAIN SKETCHES OF ANOTHER FUTURE Andrew Pickering THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO AND LONDON ANDREW PICKERING IS PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER. HIS BOOKS INCLUDE CONSTRUCTING QUARKS: A SO- CIOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PARTICLE PHYSICS, THE MANGLE OF PRACTICE: TIME, AGENCY, AND SCIENCE, AND SCIENCE AS PRACTICE AND CULTURE, A L L PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, AND THE MANGLE IN PRAC- TICE: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND BECOMING (COEDITED WITH KEITH GUZIK). THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 60637 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, LTD., LONDON © 2010 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED 2010 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-66789-8 (CLOTH) ISBN-10: 0-226-66789-8 (CLOTH) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pickering, Andrew. The cybernetic brain : sketches of another future / Andrew Pickering. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-66789-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-66789-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Cybernetics. 2. Cybernetics—History. 3. Brain. 4. Self-organizing systems. I. Title. Q310.P53 2010 003’.5—dc22 2009023367 a THE PAPER USED IN THIS PUBLICATION MEETS THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARD FOR INFORMATION SCIENCES—PERMA- NENCE OF PAPER FOR PRINTED LIBRARY MATERIALS, ANSI Z39.48-1992. DEDICATION For Jane F. CONTENTS Acknowledgments / ix 1. The Adaptive Brain / 1 2. Ontological Theater / 17 PART 1: PSYCHIATRY TO CYBERNETICS 3. -
Ontography As the Study of Locally Organized Ontologies
Ontography as the Study of Locally Organized Ontologies Michael Lynch I first used the term »ontography« in the postscript of a special issue of the journal Social Studies of Science on »the turn to ontology« in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).1 In their introduction to the special issue, the guest editors, Steve Woolgar and Javier Lezaun, noted that there had been an upsurge in the use of the term »ontology« in STS, anthropology, and other social science fields.2 Woolgar, Lezaun, and other contributors to the special issue expressed both heightened interest in and skepticism about this »turn to ontology.« The »turn« in question was not a turn back to an ancient branch of metaphysics concerned with the constitution of reality, though some of the authors who embraced it did indulge in metaphysical discourse. To the extent that it was a metaphysical movement, the turn to ontology was a turn from one metaphysical orientation to another; from a humanist treatment of representation and meaning-making, to a post-humanist (re)distribution of agency among humans, non-human beings, and material things. This turn was an empirical turn that aimed to investigate particu- lar domains of social action (including but not limited to scientific, technical, and medical actions) in which things (though not necessarily things-as-such; self-suf- ficient, non-relational entities) were highly salient, not only as objects but also as agents, agencies, and intermediaries. The turn to ontology is sometimes presented as a reaction to an over-emphasis on epistemology in earlier work in STS and related fields, particularly work asso- ciated with social constructionism in the sociology of scientific knowledge, which seemed to reduce obdurate material realities to historically, socially, and cultur- ally situated practices and knowledges. -
Broadening the Horizons of the Philosophy of Education
Broadening the Horizons of the Philosophy of Education: An Enquiry into the Social and Pragmatic Dimensions of Human Knowledge Koichiro Misawa Institute of Education University of London Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Koichiro Misawa Word Count (exclusive of bibliography): 79, 795 words 2 Abstract This thesis addresses the social dimensions of human knowledge by reference to recent developments in the theory of knowledge in the Anglophone analytical tradition. What might be called social epistemology is often open to the charge of relativism. However, a detailed analysis of the most basic conditions of knowledge that enable human beings to live as not merely evolved, biological creatures but as intellectual, sentient beings reveals the sense in which human knowledge is essentially social and has no necessary connection either with relativism or with the opposing but equally tenuous ideas such as strong realism and scientific naturalism. The social and pragmatic dimensions of human knowledge shed light on its essentially educational nature. This broad sense of educational aspect of knowledge encourages us to see the prevailing outlook towards the relation between philosophy and education quite differently. This is not to suggest that the philosophy of education finds a new niche in academia but rather to suggest that it form the centrepiece of the philosophical enquiry into human knowledge. Having set the scene for the subsequent chapters in Chapter 1, this thesis goes on to analyse several issues to do with human knowledge and education. -
An Epistemological Cross-Section of Science Studies
GÁBOR KUTROVÁTZ An Epistemological Cross-Section of Science Studies In the Context of the Science Wars – PhD dissertation – Supervisor: Márta Fehér DSc Budapest University of Technology and Ecomonics Doctoral Programme in History of Technology, Engineering and Science Budapest, 2005 CONTENTS Acknowledgements __________________________________________________________ 2 1. Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 3 1.1 Plan of the Work ________________________________________________________ 3 1.2 A Historical Summary of the Science Wars __________________________________ 6 1.3 Science Studies in Context_________________________________________________ 9 1.4 Perspectives and Levels of Study __________________________________________ 12 2. Idealism in Science Studies ______________________________________________ 16 2.1 The ‘Epistemological Fallacy’_____________________________________________ 16 2.2 Strategies______________________________________________________________ 19 2.2.1 Methodological Relativism: Collins ______________________________________________ 19 2.2.2 Constructivism: Knorr-Cetina ___________________________________________________ 23 2.2.3 Naturalistic Relativism: Bloor___________________________________________________ 26 2.2.4 Metaphysical Revisionism: Latour _______________________________________________ 30 2.3 Apriorism in Science Studies _____________________________________________ 35 2.3.1 Idealism and Kant’s legacy _____________________________________________________ 35 2.3.2 The -
Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1995. 21:289-321 Copyright 0 1995 by Annual Reviews Inc. AN rights reserved HERE AND EVERYWHERE: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge Steven Shapin Department of Sociology and Science Studies Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0102 KEY WORDS: philosophy of science, relativism, realism, localism, natural attitude The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is one of the profession's most marginal specialties, yet its objects of inquiry, its modes of inquiry, and certain of its findings have very substantial bearing upon the nature and scope of tihe sociological enterprise in general. While traditional sociology of knowledge asked how, and to what extent, "social factors" might influence the products of the mind, SSK sought to show that knowledge was constitutively social, and in so doing, it raised fundamental questions about taken-for-granted divi- sions between "social versus cognitive, or natural, factors." This piece traces the historical development of the sociology of scientific knowledge and its relations with sociology and cultural inquiry as a whole. It identifies dominant "localist" sensibilities in SSK and the consequent problem it now confronts of how scientific knowledge travels. Finally, it describes several strands of crit- icism of SSK that have emerged from among its own practitioners, noting the ways in which some criticisms can be seen as a revival of old aspirations toward privileged meta-languages. There is no shortage of reviews and assessments of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). Most have been written by critics or by participants meaning to put their special stamp on a contentious and splintered field.' I too am a participant: My views about what the field is, and ought to be, are strongly held; they have been canvassed elsewhere, and they will be unavoidably evident in this survey. -
The Ontological Turn: Taking Different Worlds Seriously
tokyo-rev-060815.doc p. 1 To appear in Social Analysis (2016) The Ontological Turn: Taking Different Worlds Seriously Andrew Pickering Dept of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology University of Exeter Amory Building Rennes Drive Exeter EX4 4RJ UK [email protected] Andrew Pickering is an emeritus professor of sociology and philosophy at the University of Exeter in England. His field is science and technology studies, and his current research focusses on art, agency, the environment and traditional Chinese philosophy. His books include Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics, Science as Practice and Culture, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science, The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming and, most recently, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to an anonymous reader for critical remarks on the first draft of this essay, and to Casper Bruun Jensen for telling me about Kopenawa’s book. This work was supported in part by a National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, funded by the Korean Government (NRF- 2013S1A3A2053087). 6,621 words. No tables or figures. ABSTRACT I discuss different scientific and nonmodern worlds as they appear in a performative (rather than representational) idiom, situating my analysis in relation to the recent ontological turns in STS and anthropology. I propose an ontology of decentred becoming that can help us take seriously the multiplicity of ‘found’ ontologies. A key concept is that of ‘islands of stability,’ which enables a comparative transition between the worlds of science and shamanism. This offers an opportunity to reflect back critically and politically on modernity, while highlighting the problems of anthropological translation that surface in a performative apprehension of nonmodern worlds. -
"The Studies Are Probably the Best Thing That Garfinkel Ever Wrote"
Volume 20, No. 2, Art. 13 May 2019 "The Studies are Probably the Best Thing That Garfinkel Ever Wrote" Michael Lynch in Conversation With Dominik Gerst, Hannes Krämer & René Salomon Key words: Abstract: Michael LYNCH is widely known as one of the key figures of ethnomethodology. In this ethnomethodology; interview, he takes the discussion of GARFINKEL's "Studies in Ethnomethodology" (1967) as an conversation opportunity to take the reader back to California in the 1970s as he shares his personal story of analysis; history of how he became acquainted with Harold GARFINKEL and ethnomethodology as a radical approach American on the rise. LYNCH provides an account of ethnomethodology as a distinctive way of researching, sociology; science writing, talking; which stands in high contrast to conventional social sciences and, which not only and technology has been marginalized by the sociological mainstream at the time it came up, but may be seen as studies; endangered nowadays. As he says in the interview, the tense relationship between epistemics; ethnomethodology and conversation analysis as a robust field of inquiry can be traced back to this practice theory question as well. He reflects upon GARFINKELs central intellectual resources—namely phenomenology and the philosophy of WITTGENSTEIN—and shows how his own work embraces the relationships of ethnomethodology with science and technology studies and actor-network theory. Giving insights into how his work is driven by a confrontation of social theory and philosophy with empirical concreteness, LYNCH discusses concepts such as practice and knowledge which may be seen as in-between-phenomena within this confrontation. Finally, he suggests to continuously reread GARFINKEL's "Studies in Ethnomethodology" as the book provides a rich resource of ideas which especially become productive in light of own research. -
A Reply to Collins and Yearley
T2 Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bath School! A Reply to Collins and Yearley Michel Callon and Bruno Latour Mademoiselled e l'Espinasse:" Voilà ma toile; et le point originaire de tous cesf ils c'est mon araignée" Bordeu:" A merveille" Mademoiselled e l'Espinasse:" Où sont les fils? Où est placée I'araignée?" Diderot,L e Rêved e d'Alembert Harry Collins and Steve Yearley {from now on C&Y) âre sâtisfied with the stateo f socials tudieso f scienceM. ost o{ the problemsh ave been solved, important discoveriesh ave been made, sociology is firm enough on its feet to study the natural sciences.T hus, accord- ing to them, there is no fundamental reason to switch to other frameso f reference-and there is still lessr eâsont o let "bloody for- eigners"d abblei n a field where the British have beenf irmly in com- mand for so mâny yeârs.W herever we go, C&Y have already been there, have given satisfactory explanations,h ave developeda n ade- quate methodology,a nd have solvedt he empirical problems.E ven if they recognize that there might be some residual difficulties-the problems of reflexivity, thât of symmetry the potential conflict be- tween relativism and social realism-their solution is to shun these intellectual traps by a process of alternation, another name for blithe ignorance,a nd an appealt o common sensea nd professional Harry Collins and SteveY earleyh ad the generosityt o host a one-dayi nformal semi- nar to play chicken "live." SteveW oolgara nd Bruno Latour were the contestantsa nd Gerard de Vries and Wiebe Biiker the refereesM.