This article critically interrogates contemporary forms of addiction medicine that are portrayed by policy-makers as providing a ‘rational’ or politically neutral approach to dealing with drug use and related social problems. In particular, it examines the historical origins of the biological facts that are today understood to provide a foundation for contemporary understandings of addiction as a ‘disease of the brain’. Drawing upon classic and contemporary work on ‘styles of thought’, it documents how, in the period between the mid-1960s and (...) the mid-1970s, such facts emerged in relation to new neurobiological styles of explaining and managing social problems associated with drug abuse, and an alliance between a relatively marginal group of researchers and American policy-makers who were launching the ‘War on Drugs’. Beyond illustrating the political and material conditions necessary for the rise of addiction neuroscience, the article highlights the productivity of neurobiological thought styles, by focusing on the new biological objects, treatments and hopes that have emerged within the field of addiction studies over the last several decades. (shrink)

A rationalist and realist model of scientific revolutions will be constructed by reference to two categories of criteria of theory-evaluation, denominated indicators of truth and of beauty. Whereas indicators of truth are formulateda priori and thus unite science in the pursuit of verisimilitude, aesthetic criteria are inductive constructs which lag behind the progression of theories in truthlikeness. Revolutions occur when the evaluative divergence between the two categories of criteria proves too wide to be recomposed or overlooked. This model of revolutions (...) depends upon a substantial new treatment of aesthetic criteria in science with which much of the paper will therefore be occupied. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn the first part of this paper, issues concerning an “epistemology of time” are raised. The Derridean theme of the historial movement of a trace is connected to Prigogine's notion of an operator-time. It is suggested that both conceptions can be used to characterize the dynamics of experimental systems in contemporary science. It is argued that such systems have, to speak with Hacking, “a life of their own” and that this is precisely the reason for their inherent unpredictability.In the (...) second part, a case from the history of virology and cytomorphology is presented. The movement of a particular experimental system is followed in its peculiar tension between deferring and becoming different—i.e., between the persistence of a problem and the vagaries of its successive transformations. They are rendered possible by novel technical implementations, but they are not determined in any meaningful sense on a mere technological level.In conclusion, a point is made for a deconstructive approach to the history of science. (shrink)

This paper lays the groundwork for normative-yet-naturalistic social epistemology. I start by presenting two scenarios for the history of epistemology since Kant, one in which social epistemology is the natural outcome and the other in which it represents a not entirely satisfactory break with classical theories of knowledge. Next I argue that the current trend toward naturalizing epistemology threatens to destroy the distinctiveness of the sociological approach by presuming that it complements standard psychological and historical approaches. I then try to (...) reassert, in Comtean fashion, the epistemologist's credentials in regulating knowledge production. Finally, I consider how social epistemology may have something exciting and relevant to say about contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

There is confusion among scholars of Bohr as to whether he should be categorized as an instrumentalist (see Faye 1991) or a realist (see Folse 1985). I argue that Bohr is a realist, and that the confusion is due to the fact that he holds a very special view of realism, which did not coincide with the philosophers’ views. His approach was sometimes labelled instrumentalist and other times realist, because he was an instrumentalist on the theoretical level, but a realist (...) on the level of models. Such a realist position is what I call phenomenological realism. In this paper, and by taking Bohr’s debate with Einstein as a paradigm, I try to prove that Bohr was such a realist. (shrink)

In a 1993 paper, I argued that empirical treatments of the epistemologyused by scientists in experimental work are too abstract in practice tocounter relativist efforts to explain the outcome of scientificcontroversies by reference to sociological forces. This was because, atthe rarefied level at which the methodology of scientists is treated byphilosophers, multiple mutually inconsistent instantiations of theprinciples described by philosophers are employed by contestingscientists. These multiple construals change within a scientificcommunity over short time frames, and these different versions ofscientific methodology (...) can determine the outcome of a controversy. Iillustrated with a comparatively detailed analysis of the methodologyused by biologists debating the existence of an entity called thebacterial mesosome between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s. This 1993piece has drawn several critiques in the philosophical literature. Inthis present piece I respond to these critiques and argue that they failto address the core argument of the original paper, and I reflectfurther on the methodologies of philosophers of science pursuingempirical or `naturalistic' epistemology. (shrink)

One of the difficulties facing the philosopher of science today is the divide between historical epistemology and analytic philosophy of science. For over half a century these two traditions have followed independent and divergent paths. Historical epistemology, which originated in France in the early twentieth century, has recently been reformulated by a number of scholars such as Lorraine Daston, Ian Hacking, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Elaborating novel historical methods, they seek to provide answers to major questions in the field. In the (...) light of this situation, my article examines the cultural barrier that explains the uneasy relationship between the two traditions. This barrier hinges on a number of factors—institutional, political and social—that are bound up with the philosophical issues in question. By resorting both to historical study and logical analysis, the new historical epistemology incites us to move beyond a rather sterile antagonism. (shrink)

The term ‘cell’, in addition to designating fundamental units of life, has also been applied since the nineteenth century to technical apparatuses such as fuel and galvanic cells. This paper shows that such technologies, based on the electrical effects of chemical reactions taking place in containers, had a far-reaching impact on the concept of the biological cell. My argument revolves around the controversy over oxidative phosphorylation in bioenergetics between 1961 and 1977. In this scientific conflict, a two-level mingling of technological (...) culture, physical chemistry and biological research can be observed. First, Peter Mitchell explained the chemiosmotic hypothesis of energy generation by representing cellular membrane processes via an analogy to fuel cells. Second, in the associated experimental scrutiny of membranes, material cell models were devised that reassembled spatialized molecular processes in vitro. Cells were thus modelled both on paper and in the test tube not as morphological structures but as compartments able to perform physicochemical work. The story of cells and membranes in bioenergetics points out the role that theories and practices in physical chemistry had in the molecularization of life. These approaches model the cell as a ‘topology of molecular action’, as I will call it, and it involves concepts of spaces, surfaces and movements. They epitomize an engineer’s vision of the organism that has influenced diverse fields in today’s life sciences. (shrink)

Gothic cathedrals like Chartres were built in a discontinuous process by groups of masons using their own local knowledge, measures, and techniques. They had neither plans nor knowledge of structural mechanics. The success of the masons in building such large complex innovative structures lies in the use of templates, string, constructive geometry, and social organization to assemble a coherent whole from the messy heterogeneous practices of diverse groups of workers. Chartres resulted from the ad hoc accumulation of the work of (...) many men. (shrink)

Social theorists in recent years have concerned themselves with the matter of the kind and intensity of people’s everyday reflective capacities. In this respect, Bourdieu has mostly been found wanting. This article seeks to counter this sentiment with recourse to an ‘anti-mechanistic’ reading of Bourdieu’s theory of practice. It begins by arguing that in imposing a strict delineation between consciousness and habitus, Bourdieu and his critics alike at times unwittingly conflate habitus and mechanistic habit, at once vaunting conscious deliberation and (...) neglecting the non-habitual acts that habitus makes possible. Next it turns to the treatment, within the mechanistic reading, of the notion of the ‘social world’. The argument is that in this reading the social world is reified and rendered the mere background or setting for social practices rather than the product of those practices. Without recognition of this latter quality, the social world becomes hypostatized and exists outside of time. The secondary aim, then, is to argue for a thoroughgoing temporal relation to social reality in Bourdieu’s theory. (shrink)

The paper argues for the importance to Kant's critique of judgment of epistemological reflections upon the problematics of experimentation on organic processes. It examines the investigations of generation by Wolff and Blumenbach, demonstrating how their experimental practices mediated reflectively between organic phenomena and their conceptualisation, acting as instruments of their judgments of these processes. It then reads Kant's ‘Kritik der teleologischen Urteilskraft’ in light of these experimental investigations, arguing that Kant highlights how the problematic relation between organic phenomena and their (...) conceptualisation manifested in such investigations is opened up as a space for reflection, thus making this act of judgment conscious. The relation between Kant's critiques of judgment in his first and third critiques are then discussed, and it is argued that the reflective character of judgment highlighted in the judgment of organic processes draws into focus the problematic aspects of all judgments of natural phenomena, by making conscious the synthetic process of judgment effected by unconscious acts of the imagination in the first critique. Finally, the paper examines Humboldt's galvanic experiments, showing how they were informed by Kant's critical philosophy, but also how they contributed to the blurring of the boundaries between the judgment of organic and inorganic processes. Thus it is claimed that the reflections upon judgment in the Kritik der Urteilskraft problematized rather than clarified Kant's treatment of judgment in the first critique. (shrink)

Sociologists generally agree that history affects or conditions moral belief, but the relationship is still only vaguely understood. Using a case study of the appearance of social justice beliefs in Victorian-era Britain, this article develops an explanation of the link between history and morality by applying field theory to capture the historical genesis of a field. A moral way of evaluating poverty and inequality developed slowly over the course of the nineteenth century in Britain, with a trajectory extending back to (...) Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population and moving forward to the Fabians, the Settlement Movement, and other social reformers at the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing from field theory, I argue that social justice beliefs emerged during this time through the genesis of moral universalism as a distinct mode of experience. Several recognizable moral beliefs appeared in the process, including “equality of opportunity,” “equality of reward,” “character,” and “effort,” “ability,” and “duty” as forms of merit (among others). I argue for treating moral beliefs as historical and relational entities that are situated and dated by the conditions marking their appearance in a field. As I conclude, this lends the sociology of morality to a critical moral reflexivity instead of moral relativism or moral realism. (shrink)

The project of naturalising phenomenology is examined within the larger context of the philosophy of science. Transcendental phenomenology, as defended by Husserl, in opposition to the naturalistic enterprise, reflects a particular way of thinking about philosophy and its relationship to the empirical sciences that stands as an obstacle to the project of naturalisation. This paper develops a critique of a basic assumption made in this conception of philosophy, namely that it is possible to ask and answer questions concerning knowledge in (...) the abstract, prior to and independently of the various investigative contexts which are the immediate concern of practicing scientists. To successfully naturalise phenomenology, we need to abandon this conception of philosophy. (shrink)

Friedman’s perspective on scientific change is a sophisticated attempt to combine Kantian transcendental philosophy and the Kuhnian historiographical model. In this article, I will argue that Friedman’s account, despite its virtues, fails to achieve the philosophical goals that it self-consciously sets, namely to unproblematically combine the revolutionary perspective of scientific development and the neo-Kantian philosophical framework. As I attempt to show, the impossibility of putting together these two aspects stems from the incompatibility between Friedman’s neo-Kantian conception of the role of (...) philosophy and the role of the notion of incommensurability, and the framework of transcendental idealism and the radical character of scientific revolutions. Hence, I suggest that pace Friedman and pace Kuhn’s own self-understanding, the Kuhnian theory of scientific revolutions cannot be seen as ‘Kantianism with moveable categories’ and consequently we should either abandon the notion of radical scientific revolution or place the Kuhnian account into another, non-Kantian philosophical framework. (shrink)

The ontological and analytical status of Marxian social theory has been a matter of fierce controversy since Marx’s death, both within and without Marxist circles. A particular source of contention has been over whether Marxism should be construed as an objective science of the capitalist mode of production or as an ethico-philosophical critique of bourgeois society. This is paralleled by the dispute over whether Marxism ought to be considered a humanism or a structuralism. This article addresses both sides of this (...) debate. The argument is that, rather than Marx’s own social thought being split into incompatible poles, giving rise to ‘two Marxisms’, it forms a coherent unity. Marx’s social theory is neither humanist philosophy, nor structural science, but is in fact realist science, which synthesizes these apparent antinomies, and thereby transcends both. (shrink)

. Through examining a case study of a major fluids modelling code, this paper charts two key properties of software as a material for building models. Scientific software development is characterized by piecemeal growth, and as a code expands, it begins to manifest frustrating properties that provide an important axis of motivation in the laboratory. The first such feature is a tendency towards brittleness. The second is an accumulation of supporting technologies that sometimes cause scientists to express a frustration with (...) the bureaucracy of highly regulated working practices. Both these features are important conditions for the pursuit of research through simulation. (shrink)

Does it work? This question lies at the very heart of the kinds of controversies that have surrounded complementary and alternative medicines (such as herbal medicine) in recent decades. In this article, I argue that medical anthropology has played a pivotal and largely overlooked role in taking the sham out of the placebo effect with important implications for what it means to say a therapy or drug `works'. If pharmacologists and clinicians have corporeally located the concept of efficacy in terms (...) of bio-availability, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, and herbalists in terms of a herbal revitalizing of the body's own vis medicatrix naturae, from the early 20th century onwards medical anthropologists (especially those who became interested in the `savage mind') have built up an equally rigorous theory of symbolic efficacy in terms of narratives, symbols and a kind of cognitive homeostasis. It was precisely as a mediating link between the somatic and the symbolic that I suggest a decriminalized placebo effect (as opposed to suggestion) could emerge in the middle of the 20th century. Taking the example of St John's Wort, I go on to show how notions of symbolic efficacy, spillover placebo efficacy and bio-efficacy co-circulate in recent attempts by herbalists, clinicians and pharmacologists to address the question of whether or not this herbal remedy `works' in the treatment of depression. (shrink)

This article uses participant objectivation in sociology and philosophy as two knowledge fields to provide a reflexive comparison of their synced field effect in historical circumstances. Drawing on the philosopher and historian of science Gaston Bachelard, I theorize fielded knowledge as a social relation that combines the prior presence of folk knowledge with a socioanalytic exchange between field and folk that includes positions of either defense, replacement or critique. A comparison of post-Wittgenstein Anglophone philosophy and post-sixties American sociology describes their (...) mutual confrontation with folk psychology as an “epistemological obstacle” that generates a remarkable concern with action as a position-taking on the folk relation. A reflexive objectivation of folk knowledge is therefore necessary for a revised understanding of action that correlates with the distinction of sociology’s knowledge capital and how it fares as an explanatory resource in competitive circumstances. The article concludes by leveraging the synced field effect even further to make a recommendation that sociologists can increase the distinction of their knowledge capital by producing discourse that can recognize, legitimate and officialize experiences that otherwise remain obscure, nameless or impossible within the bounded universe of folk psychology. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of myth and phenomenology in Pierre Schaeffer’s research into music and sound, and argues that engagement with these themes allows us to rethink the legacy and contemporary value of Schaeffer’s thought in sound studies. In light of critique of Schaeffer’s project, in particular that developed by Brian Kane and Schaeffer’s own apparent self-disavowal, this paper returns to Schaeffer’s early remarks on the “myth of the seashell” in order to examine the conditions of this critique. While (...) Kane argues that Schaeffer’s recourse to myth, coupled with his adoption of Husserlian phenomenology, leads to a closure of his inquiry and a failure to accommodate the contingency of his position, this paper argues that Schaeffer’s myth of the seashell brings into focus an open-ended, motivating phenomenological problem concerning subjectivity and objectivity that runs through his thought. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gaston Bachelard and Gilles Deleuze, this paper considers the epistemological significance of this moment in Schaeffer’s thought, suggesting a “problematic” account of the myth of the seashell that puts Schaeffer into conversation with contemporary work in epistemology. (shrink)

Some relevant distinctions between the notions of complexity, non-linearity, self-organization and emergence are addressed.

: During the "institutional revolution" between 1870 and 1910 almost two dozen physics institutes were newly erected in Germany. The design of these buildings was largely determined by sets of precautions against various sorts of disturbances. These undertakings were by no means unique. Recent historical studies have identified similar attempts in physics institutes outside Germany. But as yet, hardly a word has been wasted on the necessity of these precautionary measures. It seems to be self-explanatory that disturbances should be precluded (...) from scientific investigations. My paper criticizes this approach. The evidential nature of this assertion rests on the questionable assumption that disturbances are "external factors," which hinder physical research. I examine the 'architecture of disturbance' and show that it is the set of precautions itself which sometimes produces 'disturbing' effects. I then focus on particular sources of disturbance that were taken into account in the design of the buildings, and analyze the aporias that characterize the 'external' definition of disturbances. In conclusion, an alternative understanding of disturbances is offered. Following Michel Serres's concept of the parasite, I suggest that disturbances indicate the "being of relation" in physics research around 1900. From this point of view I finally sketch two novel features that governed the design of physics institutes after the turn of the century. (shrink)

In his consideration of thought development, Auguste Comte proposed a three-stage model, in which the mechanism of development may lead to new types of thought. So the process that led to a philosophy of science may be repeated to create a new type of thought. The thought development is attributed to a process of accumulation of challenged but unanswered questions, followed by a decline of interest in that type of thinking.

This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to analytic understanding. Clarification of the (...) ways in which form is at work in game play is sought from aesthetic theory (Kant), ludology (or theory of games), and the idea of a neo-baroque entertainment culture (Ndalianis). Kant emphasized the role of play in the constitution of imaginary realms associated with aesthetic pleasure. Ludology takes play as an anthropological given differentiated historically by the development of game structures. Neo-baroque theory postulates a labyrinthine, complex and de-centred entertainment culture, largely shaped by computing as a cultural practice. The article synthesizes insights from these perspectives and, drawing on ideas from Adorno and Benjamin, argues that computer games can occupy an oppositional or critical role within contemporary aesthetics and culture. Reflection on the constitutive processes of computer game play discloses a new place for instrumental reason within aesthetic experience, as the dialectic of form and analysis migrates from traditional art materials to digital electronics. (shrink)

I am arguing that it is only by concentrating on the role of models in theory construction, interpretation and change, that one can study the progress of science sensibly. I define the level at which these models operate as a level above the purely empirical (consisting of various systems in reality) but also indeed below that of the fundamental formal theories (expressed linguistically). The essentially multi-interpretability of the theory at the general, abstract linguistic level, implies that it can potentially make (...) claims about systems in reality, other than the particular one which originally induced it. Any so-called correspondence relation between (systems in) reality and the entities and relations in some scientific theory, thus consists of two jumps or interpretations: from the theory (linguistic level) to some model of it (constructural level); and from there to some system in reality. Clearly then the level of fundamental theories cannot be ignored la Nancy Cartwright - in studying the relations between a theory and reality, because the particular features of the theory (the various systems in reality onto which the theory can be mapped) cannot be studied without the underlying knowledge that these systems have one common feature, namely that each of them is the range (or other pole) of a mapping of a context-specific model of the theory - which in itself, is a mapping, or more specifically, an interpretation of the theory. I am also claiming that the nature of these levels and the relations between them necessitate an epistemological rather than an ontological notion of truth criteria, and a referential rather than a representational link between science and reality. (shrink)

This article offers a critical review of various ontological-relativist arguments, mostly deriving from the work of W. V. Quine and Thomas K hn. I maintain that these arguments are (1) internally contradictory, (2) incapable of accounting for our knowledge of the growth of scientific knowledge, and (3) shown up as fallacious from the standpoint of a causal-realist approach to issues of truth, meaning, and interpretation. Moreover, they have often been viewed as lending support to such programmes as the 'strong' sociology (...) of knowledge and the turn towards wholesale cultural-relativist doctrines, whether of the Wittgensteinian ('language-games') or Heideggerian (depth-hermeneutic) varieties. Thus Richard Rorty recommends that we should henceforth drop all that old-fashioned talk of 'truth', 'knowledge', or 'reality', since whatever warrants those descriptions from time to time is just the product of some currently favoured language-game or range of elective metaphors. Such ideas have little in common with Quine's general outlook of robust physicalism, nor again - though the case is less clear - with Kuhn's reconsidered approach to these issues as set forth in his 1969 Postscript to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . However, both thinkers have left themselves open to misconstrual by adopting a sceptical-relativist fallback position in response to the well-known problems with logical empiricism. This essay therefore reviews those problems with reference to alternative, more adequate accounts of what is involved in the process of scientific discovery and theory-change. (shrink)

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard's thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard's emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly “phenomenological” in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to “embracket” the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, (...) the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard's metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard's “new poetics” results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the “new scientific spirit” on to/across his aesthetics. (shrink)

The paper approaches the topic of what a general philosophy of science could mean today from the perspective of a historical epistemology. Consequently, in a first step, the paper looks at the notion of generality in the sciences, and how it evolved over time, on the example of the life sciences. In the second part of the paper, the urgency of a general philosophy of science is located in the history of philosophy of science. Two attempts at the beginning of (...) the twentieth century are particularly highlighted: that of Karl Popper and that of Martin Heidegger. Both of them concentrate, albeit in widely different form, on the phenomenon of research as an open-ended process. This trend is even more pronounced in Gaston Bachelard’s version of a historical epistemology, whose work is taken as a point of reference for a general historical epistemology of research. The paper concludes with a plea to look, with Georges Canguilhem, at the history of the sciences as a laboratory for epistemology. (shrink)

Underlying this article is the conviction that social scientists typically take on board a too restrictive concept of knowledge acquisition. The paper propounds a new concept of knowledge acquisition, one which is self-referential (i.e. which affects one's presuppositions) and which draws upon the unfamiliar to reveal and undercut the familiar. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it is to show that this concept of knowledge acqui sition is already anticipated by Foucault, that it is a major concern of (...) his, and that it is a common thread throughout his work. Consequently, a new light can be thrown on both Foucault's archaeology and his genealogy: both are directed towards a self-referential form of knowledge, and as such the two periods are shown to have more in common than conventionally assumed. Second (and conversely), the aim of the paper is to elucidate this self-referential type of knowledge by showing how it is used by Foucault. Key Words: archaeology • Foucault • genealogy • history • methodology • Nietzsche • past • philosophy of social sciences • present • structuralism. (shrink)

The ArgumentWhen economists report on research using mathematical models, they use a literary form similar to the experimental report in the laboratory sciences. This form consists of a narrative of a series of events, with a clear temporal segregation of the agency of the author and the agency of the objects of study. Existing explanations of this literary form treat it as a rhetorical device that either conceals the agency of the author in constructing and interpreting the findings, or simply (...) appropriates the appearance of accepted scientific method. This article — based on analysis of a research program in economics, a single article that issued from that program, and in-depth interviews with the authors — proposes an alternate interpretation. Drawing on the praxeological “laboratory studies” tradition in science studies, we treat work with mathematical models as involving the interaction of economists with objects that act independently of the analyst's will. The clear separation of the economist's and the models agency, as depicted in the published report, is not the result of a rhetorical rewriting of actual events, but is a practical accomplishment. Every step in the analytical work that preceded the paper is devoted to developing a procedure in which the economists' agency will be completely accountable in terms of accepted practices, and the performance of the model will be distinct and compelling. (shrink)

This essay looks at Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz to trace the film's transformation of a mechanistic scientific discourse into affective indeterminacy. Through patterns of repetition of a key event, the film considers its protagonist as a complex web of constantly shifting forces – a network of biological, social, political and semiotic flows coalescing in a body that exists in a state of perpetual oscillation between force and mutilation, ecstasy and pain. The role of physics and other materialist discourses in the film (...) is thus not to fixate subjectivity, but rather to provide a passage into its affective transformations and the intense desubjectification that results. (shrink)

The collection Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference brings together a range of new philosophical engagements with mathematics, using the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as its focus. Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics in order to reconfigure particular philosophical problems and to develop new concepts. These alternative conceptual histories also challenge some of the self-imposed limits of the discipline of mathematics, and suggest the possibility of forging new connections (...) between philosophy and more recent developments in mathematics. This component of Deleuze’s work has, to date, been rather neglected by commentators working in the field of Deleuze studies. One of the aims of this collection is to address this critical deficit by providing a philosophical presentation of Deleuze’s relation to mathematics; one that is adequate to his project of constructing a philosophy of difference and to the exploration of some of its applications. This project developed as a result of encounters with an increasing number of researchers who have been working on the mathematical aspects of Deleuze’s work and the key role that these play in his philosophy. By bringing this work together for the first time, this collection makes an important contribution to the emerging body of work that endeavours to explore the broad range of Deleuze’s philosophy. (shrink)

Whereas epistemological debates raged in educational administration during the Theory Movement, or inspired by intervention from Thom Greenfield, Richard Bates or Colin Evers and Gabriele Lakomski, epistemology and the quest for the scientific study of educational administration has somewhat diminished in the era of managerialism and the pursuit of research that has a direct impact on practice. Theoretically informed by the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, I seek to re-engage with the epistemological preliminaries of scholarship in educational leadership, (...) management and administration. In doing so, I argue that administration is central to our way of seeing the social world and raise questions about the embedded and embodied nature of the educational administration scholar and what this means for scholarship. A social ‘scientific’ approach to educational administration, as advocated for in this article, must break free of the ambition of grounding in reason, the arbitrary division of the social world and instead, take for its object, rather than getting itself caught up in, the struggle for the monopoly of the legitimate representation of the social world. (shrink)

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard's thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard's emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly “phenomenological” in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to “embracket” the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, (...) the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard's metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard's “new poetics” results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the “new scientific spirit” on to/across his aesthetics. (shrink)

This essay argues a case for viewing Derrida's work in the context of recent French epistemology and philosophy of science; more specifically, the critical‐rationalist approach exemplified by thinkers such as Bachelard and Canguilhem. I trace this line of descent principally through Derrida's essay ‘White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy’. My conclusions are (1) that we get Derrida wrong if we read him as a fargone antirealist for whom there is nothing ‘outside the text'; (2) that he provides some (...) powerful counter‐arguments to this and other items of current postmodern wisdom; (3) that deconstruction is more aptly viewed as continuing the epistemo‐critical approach developed by thinkers like Bachelard; and (4) that it also holds important lessons for philosophy of science in the mainstream Anglo‐ American ‘analytic’ tradition. (shrink)

The essays in this book provide an excellent introduction to the means by which scientists convey their ideas. While diverse in their subject matter, the essays are unified in asserting that scientists compose and use particular representations in contextually organized and contextually sensitive ways, and that these representations - particularly visual displays such as graphs, diagrams, photographs, and drawings - depend for their meaning on the complex activities in which they are situated.The topics include sociological orientations to representational practice, representation (...) and the realist-constructivist controversy, the fixation of evidence, time and documents in researcher interaction, selection and mathematization in the visual documentation of objects in the life sciences, the use of illustrations in texts (E.0. Wilson's Sociobiology, a field guide to the birds), representing practice in cognitive science, the iconography of scientific texts, and semiotic analysis of scientific, representation. The contributors are K. Amann, Ronald Amerine, Francoise Bastide, Jack Bilmes, K. Knorr, Bruno Latour, John Law, Michael Lynch, Greg Meyers, Lucy A. Suchman, Paul Tibbetts, Steve Woolgar, and Steven Yearley.Michael Lynch is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Boston University. Steve Woolgar is at the Centre for Research into Innovation Culture, and Technology at Brunel University, Uxbridge, England. (shrink)

The myriad controversies embroiling the mental health field—heightened in the lead-up to the release of DSM-5 —merit a close analysis of the field and its epistemological underpinnings. By using DSM as a starting point, this paper develops to overview the entire mental health field. Beginning with a history of the field and its recent crises, the troubles of the past “external crisis” are compared to the contemporary “internal crisis.” In an effort to examine why crises have recurred, the internal dynamics (...) of the field are assessed: applying Kuhn’s paradigmatic framework, crises are appraised to situate the differences between the natural sciences and the mental health field. Next, a Foucauldian analysis examines the functioning of the field’s power over the body, which is disproportionate in comparison to its scientific grounding. This is followed by investigating the field’s combination of contested scientific grounding and significant power, through a Latourian consideration of the assumptions and meaning behind the mental health field’s deployment of science. This includes scrutinizing the history of the classification of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The paper closes by assessing the field’s potential to address these issues effectively. (shrink)

I am going to compare the strategies and communication bees use in order to locate and retrieve nectar to the world of science and the scientist. The analogy is intentionally anthropomorphic but I wish to argue that if successful bees made assumptions they would be similar to those of the scientist: flowers can be regarded as facts, nectar as knowledge, honey as technology and their ‘waggle-dance’ as communication of ideas. I would like to say that this is to be used (...) as an analogy and should not be taken to be a statement of the scientific method as an emergent property of nature, as evolution ultimately does not care about what is true or false, whereas science does. However, what i do wish to convey is that in the same way that the life of bees can be limited by the process of their enquiries; science can also limit itself by the assumptions that are taken to be true or worthwhile in the quest for new knowledge. (shrink)

This paper considers the theoretical circumstances that urged Michel Foucault to analyse modern societies in terms of biopower. Georges Canguilhem’s account of the relations between science and the living forms an essential starting point for Foucault’s own later explorations, though the challenges posed by the molecular revolution in biology and François Jacob’s history of it allowed Foucault to extend and transform Canguilhem’s philosophy of error. Using archival research into his 1955–1956 course on “Science and Error,” I show that, for Canguilhem, (...) it is inauthentic to treat a living being as an error, even if living things are capable of making errors in the domain of knowledge. The emergent molecular biology in the 1960s posed a grave challenge, however, since it suggested that individuals could indeed be errors of genetic reproduction. The paper discusses how Canguilhem and Foucault each responded to this by examining, among other texts, their respective reviews of Jacob’s The Logic of the Living. For Canguilhem this was an opportunity to reaffirm the creativity of life in the living individual, which is not a thing to be evaluated, but the source of values. For Foucault, drawing on Jacob’s work, this was the opportunity to develop a transformed account of valuation by posing biopower as the DNA of society. Despite their disagreements, the paper examines these three authors as different iterations of a historical epistemology attuned to errancy, error, and experimentation. (shrink)

In this essay we introduce the idea of an epistemic triangle, with factual, theoretical, and conceptual investigations at its vertices, and argue that whereas scientific progress requires a balance among the three types of investigations, psychology's epistemic triangle is stretched disproportionately in the direction of factual investigations. Expressed by a variety of different problems, this unbalance may be created by a main operative theme—the obsession of psychology with a narrow and mechanical view of the scientific method and a misguided aversion (...) to conceptual inquiries. Hence, to redress psychology's epistemic triangle, a broader and more realistic conception of method is needed and, in particular, conceptual investigations must be promoted. Using examples from different research domains, we describe the nature of conceptual investigations, relate them to theoretical investigations, and illustrate their purposes, forms, and limitations. (shrink)

(1) An introduction to the principles of conceptual modelling, combinatorial heuristics and epistemological history; (2) the examination of a number of perennial epistemological-methodological schemata: conceptual spaces and blending theory; ars inveniendi and ars demonstrandi; the two modes of analysis and synthesis and their relationship to ars inveniendi; taxonomies and typologies as two fundamental epistemic structures; extended cognition, cognitio symbolica and model-based reasoning; (3) Plato’s notions of conceptual spaces, conceptual blending and hypothetical-analogical models (paradeigmata); (4) Ramon Llull’s concept analysis and combinatoric (...) spaces; (5) Gottfried Leibniz’s development of compositional analysis and synthesis as a general modelling method and a paradigm for ars inveniendi; (6) Fritz Zwicky’s revival of the morphological method of analysis and construction, and its subsequent computerised applications. (shrink)