ArgumentDrawing and writing number among the most widespread scientific practices of representation. Neither photography, graphic recording apparatuses, typewriters, nor digital word- and image-processing ever completely replaced drawing and writing by hand. The interaction of hand, paper, and pen indeed involves much more than simply recording or visualizing what was previously thought, observed, or imagined. Both writing and drawing have the power to translate concepts and observations into two-dimensional, manageable, reproducible objects. They help to develop research questions and they open up (...) an interaction between the gathering of phenomena and the formation of theses. Related to the manifold studies of representational activities in the sciences and the humanities, this topical issue tries to refine our understanding of the capacities of drawing and writing as research techniques; i.e. as productive epistemic practices. In particular the contributions address three aspects: the material conditions and configurations of the “scene of drawing and writing,” the involved procedures of production, and the languages of inscription. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper explores the confrontation of physical and contextual factors involved in the emergence of the subject of color measurement, which stabilized in essentially its present form during the interwar period. The contentions surrounding the specialty had both a national and a disciplinary dimension. German dominance was curtailed by American and British contributions after World War I. Particularly in America, communities of physicists and psychologists had different commitments to divergent views of nature and human perception. They therefore had to (...) negotiate a compromise between their desire for a quantitative system of description and the perceived complexity and human-centeredness of color judgment. These debates were played out not in the laboratory but rather in institutionalized encounters on standards committees. Such groups constitute a relatively unexplored historiographic and social site of investigation. The heterogeneity of such committees, and their products, highlight the problems of identifying and following such ephemeral historical “actors”. (shrink)

Three influential forms of realism are distinguished and interrelated: realism about the external world, construed as a metaphysical doctrine; scientific realism about non-observable entities postulated in science; and semantic realism as defined by Dummett. Metaphysical realism about everyday physical objects is contrasted with idealism and phenomenalism, and several potent arguments against these latter views are reviewed. -/- Three forms of scientific realism are then distinguished: (i) scientific theories and their existence postulates should be taken literally; (ii) the existence of unobservable (...) entities posited by our most successful scientific theories is justified scientifically; and (iii) our best current scientific theories are at least approximately true. It is argued that only some form of scientific realism can make proper sense of certain episodes in the history of science. -/- Finally, Dummett’s influential formulation of semantic issues about realism considered. Dummett argued that in some cases, the fundamental issue is not about the existence of entities, but rather about whether statements of some specified class (such as mathematics) have an objective truth value, independently of our means of knowing it. Dummett famously argued against such semantic realism and in favor of anti-realism. The relation of semantic realism to the metaphysical construal of realism and Dummett’s main argument against semantic realism is examined. (shrink)

Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral purification yields a comprehensive andsystematic account of normative issues raised bycontroversial science. Hybridization proceeds bytaking concern for all these (...) elements to be a mark ofsound moral character. The advocate of hybridizationinfers that those who employ a strategy ofpurification seek to avoid accountability by dividingissues, and hence are not to be trusted. Lack of trustincreases perceived risk and challenges the legitimacyof government regulations to control social,environmental, and human health risks that areestablished under separate mandate, and administeredby separate agencies.The close alignment between government agencies, theiracademic affines, and the categories of purificationplaces the purified analysis in a favored politicalposition. Legitimation of science-based policy inareas like animal biotechnology becomes problematicbecause the concern of those who would take a hybridapproach (arguably the majority of lay persons) tounderstanding controversial science are excluded.Ironically, this exclusion heightens the perception ofrisk from animal biotechnology. The paper concludeswith a call for procedural approaches to incorporatingthe hybrid view of science‘s moral significance. (shrink)

In recent decades, constituenciesserved by land-grant agricultural research haveexperienced significant demographic and politicalchanges, yet most research institutions have not fullyresponded to address the concerns of a changingclientele base. Thus, we have seen continuingcontroversies over technologies produced by land-grantagricultural research. While a number of scholars havecalled for a more participatory agricultural scienceestablishment, we understand little about the processof enhancing and institutionalizing participation inthe US agricultural research enterprise. We firstexamine some of the important issues surroundingcitizen participation in science and technologypolicy. We then (...) review and assess variousinstitutional mechanisms for participation that havebeen implemented in diverse settings by institutionsof science and technology. Based on evidence from theexperiences of these institutions, we argue that acloser approximation of the ‘public good’ can beachieved by encouraging the participation of thefullest range possible of constituents as an integralpart of the process of setting research priorities. (shrink)

This article concerns itself with the reception of Rous' 1911 discovery of what later came to be known as the Rous Sarcoma Virus (RSV). Rous made his discovery at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research which had been primarily established to conduct research into infectious diseases. Rous' chance discovery of a chicken tumor led him to a series of conjectures about cancer causation and about whether cancer could have an extrinsic cause. Rous' finding was received with some scepticism by the (...) scientific community that held that cancer was not infectious and favored explanations which located the origins of cancer in the inner mechanism of the cell. After 4 years of unsuccessful effort to isolate and further determine the virus Rous felt compelled to discontinue his work on cancer viruses. When 55 years later, the significance of Rous's discovery was attested by the award of the Nobel Prize, it opened up debates about the issues of delayed recognition and scientific reputation. This article also considers why Rous' hypothesis of a viral origin of cancer could not be incorporated into the existing body of knowledge about cancer before the 1950s. (shrink)

This article deals with the problematic concepts of the rational and the social, which have been typically seen as dichotomous in the history and philosophy of science literature. I argue that this view is mistaken and that the social can be seen as something that enables rationality in science, and further, that a scientific community as well as an individual can be taken as an epistemic subject. Furthermore, I consider how scientific communities could be seen as freely acting and choosing (...) agents. Fundamentally, this boils down to the question whether we accept the voluntarist conception of human beings, one consequence of which is that scientists possess, in principle, the capacity for deliberative reflection and choice. If this is accepted, we can talk about the degrees of autonomy that communities possess. I also examine what kinds of decisions an autonomous community should make in order to produce objective knowledge. My suggestion is that objectivity be understood as intersubjectivity: a view is objective when it has been exposed to critical reflection from various points of view, and due to this, transcends subjective idiosyncrasies. (shrink)

Latour is widely considered a critic and renewer of research in the social sciences. The ecologically minded Left has also acclaimed him as a theorist interested in bringing nature back both into sociological theory and into society and politics. To enable a more detailed discussion of Latour’s claims, I will here outline his theory and the ways in which it is related to classical theory, such as Durkheim, and the methodology of the interpretive paradigm, such as Schütz. My thesis is (...) that Latour’s empirical studies may be read as unfolding the methodological consequences of the interpretive paradigm, and that his early work is a brilliant proof of Durkheim’s theory of the morphology of social facts. Latour has now elaborated the insights he gained from concrete laboratory studies toward a general theory of the social, of society, and of politics. These generalizations have made his theory at least partly problematic. The political implication of Latour’s theory of society is a generalization of the call for equality to encompass everything; in other words, Latour criticizes the exclusion of nonhuman entities from political representation. The paper closes by discussing the political consequences of this proposal. (shrink)

Two important debates have characterized mainstream epistemology in recent years. The first is the debate between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The second is the debate over the details of a naturalized epistemology. Both debates have meant that traditional concepts of rationality and justification are now understood in a new light. Both debates have helped focus attention on the future direction of epistemology, its goals and its limitations.

We provide a critical assessment of the National Science Foundation's “broader impacts criterion” for peer review, which has met with resistance from the scientific community and been characterized as unlikely to have much positive effect due to poor implementation and adherence to the linear model heuristic for innovation. In our view, the weakness of NSF's approach owes less to these issues than to the misguided assumption that the peer review process can be used to leverage more societal value from research. (...) This idea, although undoubtedly well-meaning, is fundamentally flawed. Retooling or refining the Broader Impacts Criterion does not alter the fact that conventional peer review, based on specialized scientific and technical expertise, is not up to the task of ensuring adequate judgements about social impact. We consider some possible alternative approaches to providing greater social impact in science and include in our assessment past and current efforts at NSF and throughout the federal research establishment that address, in some cases having addressed for decades, the intentions and goals of the Broader Impacts Criterion, albeit using alternate mechanisms. We conclude that institution-building and explicit and targeted policy-making are more useful and democratically legitimate approaches to ensuring broad social impacts. (shrink)

This essay explores how the human biological self is socially constructed, and rejects various truisms that define our character. Rather than being stand-alone entities, the human biological self forms what biologists call “superorganisms” and what I call “poly-super-organisms.” Thus, along with prokaryotes , viruses, and other entities, we are combined in an inseparable menagerie of species that is spread across multiple bodies. Biologists claim that only males and females are organisms. As described here, however, human sperm and eggs are equally (...) entitled to that rank. Much about human reproduction is also socially constructed. For example, contrary to scientific wisdom, humans have always reproduced both sexually and asexually. Moreover, human life does not begin between conception and birth, and neither event creates new life. In addition, some cancer cells are organisms; they are contagious entities formed by asexual human reproduction. Finally, while science universally describes humans as being living entities, accumulating evidence makes clear that the life concept is failing. In fact, much that originates from human bodies does not fall under current biological or cultural classifications.How we construct the human biological self has consequences for understanding our health, how we reproduce, and what we are. These social constructions greatly influence our views on abortion, stem-cell research, human cloning, and our post-human future. A more accurate construction of the human biological self will help us better navigate these contentious issues. (shrink)

This article suggests a discourse analysis suitable for multi-dimensional processes. The exemplar in focus is a single narrative that travelled a long way through an English criminal pre-trial to the finalising Crown Court-hearing. The following case study asks how this story was mobilised by the defence to challenge the prosecution's case. The resulting sequential analysis of the story's career profits a good deal from Laboratory Studies. Like ethnographies in Science and Technology Studies, the analysis involves an extended production process—and the (...) productivities of the artefacts produced. It shows, furthermore, how the mobilisation of the alibi is at some points threatened by emerging potentialities to undermine it. All in all, the resulting micro-history on the story's career hinges on as well as exceeds common preferences in social constructivism: for collaborative and local accomplishments, for structural and antagonistic oppositions, and for success stories. (shrink)

This essay aims to clarify the value of developing systematic studies of ignorance as a component of any robust theory of knowledge. The author employs feminist efforts to recover and create knowledge of women's bodies in the contemporary women's health movement as a case study for cataloging different types of ignorance and shedding light on the nature of their production. She also helps us understand the ways resistance movements can be a helpful site for understanding how to identify, critique, and (...) transform ignorance. (shrink)

: The main contribution of this paper to current philosophical and sociological studies on modeling is to analyze modeling as an object-oriented interdisciplinary activity and thus to bring new insights into the wide, heterogeneous discourse on tools, forms and organization of interdisciplinary research. A detailed analysis of interdisciplinarity in the making of models is presented, focusing on long-standing interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in infectious diseases, mathematicians and computer scientists. The analysis introduces a novel way of studying the elements of the (...) models as carriers of interdisciplinarity. These elements, being functionally interdependent building blocks, evolve during the modeling work and carry the disciplinary tensions in the process. This shows how the long and challenging process of defining and reformulating the object of research is crucial for understanding the dynamics of interdisciplinarity in the making. (shrink)

In this paper I use data from interviews conducted with coral scientists to examine the socio-ecological dimensions of science, i.e. how science shapes and is shaped by the living world around it. I use two sets of ideas in particular: niche construction and socio-ecological value frameworks. Using these I offer socio-ecological criteria by which coral scientists evaluate the activities of coral science, more specifically which living systems are intended to benefit from coral science as an activity, and the motivations behind (...) this. The overall picture I present is one of coral science as activity primarily aimed at sustaining a diverse set of living systems, including humans, other organisms, species, and ecosystems, and the social practices associated with these. The value relations between scientists and aspects of these processes dictate how they respond to shifts in the socio-ecological context coral science is embedded in, explaining why the activities associated with coral science are changing as reef ecosystems are threatened. The implication is that natural sciences more generally are entangled with a greater number of social and ecological process than is typically considered, and that shifts in the activities undertaken by scientists may be driven by ecological as well as social and epistemic processes. (shrink)

For some years now, the significance of truth for politics has been intensely debated under the buzzword “post-truth.” However, this cannot hide the fact that political theory and philosophy have systematically neglected the relationship between truth and politics throughout their history. This article intends to remedy this desideratum by differentiating the various modes in which truth is referred to and invoked in the political field. To this end, the main strands of the post-truth debate are reconstructed and their shortcomings are (...) pointed out. Second, based on a contrasting reading of Habermas and Foucault, possible starting points for systematizing the relationship between truth and politics are discussed. Third, and as a prolegomenon to such a systematization, the article proposes a cartography of political truth forms and relations along five fault lines: truth as foundation and de-foundation, truth as coercion and freedom, truth as virtue and scandal, truth as secret and transparency, and truth as knowledge and practice. (shrink)

This thesis explores Officer Cadets' social construction of leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). It addresses calls for more research into leadership behaviours. Taking a social constructionist perspective, the thesis focuses on unmasking the social construction of Leadership amongst Officer Cadets. This study adopts a reflexive approach, acknowledging the centrality of the researcher in the co-construction of the data. The thesis develops interdisciplinary links between the theoretical areas of Dark Leadership to problematize and inform contemporary understandings of Officer (...) Cadets' social construction of leadership through the emergent findings of the study. This qualitative study employed a mono-method research design consisting of semistructured interviews. Through these, participants shared their lived experiences and gave descriptions and understandings of their past leadership experiences before and current experiences within Sandhurst with a reflexive interview approach. The thesis utilises Reflexive Thematic analysis to interpret the data, with the results presented thematically. The thesis uses reflexive thematic analysis to explore dark leadership through a social constructionist lens; the research has evidenced functional changes to practices within Sandhurst and developed a model of what dark leadership at Sandhurst is from an Officer Cadets view. This approach highlights the importance of contextuality, the person and the situation through a holistic Leadership approach. The thesis proposes a holistic framework for leadership, which would advance toward de-coupling the dichotomies of leadership. (shrink)

It is time to update Deleuze and Guattari's contrast between Chess and Go in the ‘Nomadology’ Plateau with a discussion of AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence that revolutionised Go in 2016. I focus less on the political issues in Go nomadology, central as they are, and more on smooth space and time. I explain and speculate on some details in Go strategy, as well as some processes of machine learning. The relations between human Go, computer Go, and smooth-time nomadology remain unsettled, (...) in my view, but many resources for nomadological analysis open up for readers who learn to play, and program, Go. (shrink)

The 1980s, it is often claimed, was the decade when experimentation finally became a philosophical topic. This was the responsibility, the claim continues, of one particular movement within philosophy of science, called “new experimentalism.” The aim of this article is to complicate this historical narrative. We argue that in the 1980s, the study of experimentation was carried out not by one movement with one particular aim but rather in a diverse and open-ended way by people with different aims and backgrounds. (...) We then argue that from the late 1990s onward, this diversity disappeared and made room for disciplinary divisions—questions concerning experimentation became philosophical, others sociological, and so on. The reason for this, we claim, was that science and technology studies, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of science took over aspects of the 1980s study of experimentation. In this way, we argue, these elements became institutionalized, whereas others were forgotten. The importance of this process of institutionalization is illustrated by means of a discussion of other, similar approaches to the philosophy of experimentation that have not been able to ensure continuity because they did not find an institutional home. (shrink)

“Don’t think, but look!” (Wittgenstein 2009: § 66). This insistient advice has served as methodological inspiration for several influential thinkers in the broad range of ‘empirically informed’ philosophy, which has flourished over the last decades. There is, however, a worrisome tension between Wittgenstein’s work and these turns to practices, history, science, field work, and everyday life: Wittgenstein is in general doing something different from what the thinkers who claim to be inspired by him are doing. An argument for the legitimacy (...) of the move from Wittgenstein to empirically informed philosophy is so far missing in the literature. This article shows how this move can be justifiable within a Wittgensteinian frame, philosophically beneficial, and at times even necessary. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how trends in the use of images in modern life science journals have changed since the spread of computer-based visual and imaging technology. To this end, a new classification system was constructed to analyze how the graphics of a scientific journal have changed over the years. The focus was on one international peer-reviewed journal in life sciences, Cell, which was founded in 1974, whereby 1725 figures and 160 tables from the research articles (...) in Cell were sampled. The unit of classification was defined as a graphic and the figures and tables were divided into 5952 graphics. These graphics were further classified into hierarchical categories, and the data in each category were aggregated every five years. The following categories were observed: data graphics, explanation graphics, and hybrid graphics. Data graphics increased by more than sixfold between 1974 and 2014, and some types of data graphics including mechanical reproduction images and bar charts displayed notable changes. The representation of explanatory graphics changed from hand-painted illustrations to diagrams of Bezier-curves. It is suggested that in addition to the development of experimental technologies such as fluorescent microscopy and big data analysis, continuously evolving application software for image creation and researchers’ motivation to convince reviewers and editors have influenced these changes. (shrink)

While ethnomusicologists often write about musical instruments and engage with social theories, these two predilections are typically distinct, and rarely are instruments theorized let alone considered in social terms. Drawing on recent work in Science and Technology Studies, I argue for a study of the social where musical objects (including instruments) and people are actors within patterned heterogeneous networks. I begin with literary examples of instruments framed as having agency, then move to the treatment of instrument-agency within organology. As an (...) exemplar for this methodology, I consider the social life of the saz, an ubiquitous lute from Turkey. (shrink)

Often associated with themes in political philosophy and aesthetics, the work of Jean-François Lyotard is most known for his infamous definition of the postmodern in his best-known book, La condition postmoderne, as incredulity towards metanarratives. The claim of this article is that this famous claim of Lyotard is actually embedded in a philosophy of technology, one that is, moreover, still relevant for understanding present technoscience. The first part of the article therefore sketches Lyotard’s philosophy of technology, mainly by correcting three (...) common misconceptions: that La condition postmoderne would only be about metanarratives, whereas in fact, it is mainly about what replaces them, namely performativity; that performativity would be shorthand for capitalism, whereas in reality, capitalism is the latest instance of a longer history of performativity; and that Lyotard’s reflections on science and technology would be restricted to this book alone, whereas in reality, a well-articulated philosophy of technology, centered around the concept of technoscience, is found in his later work. The second part of the article then aims to highlight the contemporary relevance of this philosophy of technoscience through a brief examination of two contemporary technosciences: synthetic biology and data science. (shrink)

This chapter explores how science and technology studies (STS) have evolved over the past generation. It surveys the contrasting perspectives of philosophers, sociologists, scholars of the humanities, wider publics, and scientists themselves. It describes contrasting views about the practice and purpose for studying the history of science. -/- ISBN 978-1-85168-681-0.

Although there are many possible ways of understanding menopause, it is the notion of menopause as hormone deficiency that currently dominates. How is it that this account remains prevalent rather than some alternative understanding of menopause? This question is explored through the employment of a framework informed by both actor network theory and symbolic interactionist studies. The author exploits the common ground shared by these two conceptual approaches to analyze how practices generate and reify particular kinds of knowledge about menopause. (...) The analysis is situated within Australian menopause clinics and explores several key contemporary practices of these clinics to show how the particular understanding of menopause as hormone deficiency is generated and stabilized. The study stresses the knowledge/practice nexus and emphasizes that meanings are not given in advance but are generated through practices. In particular, the focus is on the interactions of the social and the material entities of menopause clinics and how through these interactions the understanding of menopause as hormone deficiency is produced. (shrink)

The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...) primary and secondary qualities from Galileo onward. It is arguably one of several conceptions involved in Whewell’s method of the “consilience of inductions” (Laudan 1971) and is to be found in several places in Peirce. (From M. Brewer and B. Collins, eds., (1981); Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences (a festschrift for Donald T. Campbell), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 123–162.). (shrink)

Three philosophical perspectives on the relation between technology and society are distinguished and discussed: 1) technology as an autonomous force that determines society; 2) technology as a human construct that can be shaped by human values, and 3) a co-evolutionary perspective on technology and society where neither of them determines the other. The historical evolution of the three perspectives is discussed and it is argued that all three are still present in current debates about technological change and how it may (...) affect society. This is illustrated for the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is argued that each of the three perspectives contributes to the debate of AI but that the third has the strongest potential to uncover blind spots in the current debate. (shrink)

There is an ongoing and robust tradition of science and technology studies scholars conducting ethnographic laboratory studies. These laboratory studies—like all ethnographies—are each conducted at a particular time, are situated in a particular place, and are about a particular culture. Presumably, this contextual specificity means that such ethnographies have limited applicability beyond the narrow slice of time, place, and culture that they each subject to examination. But we do not always or even often treat them that way. It is beyond (...) common for us to speak about what one or another laboratory study reveals about the laboratory, or “science” much more broadly. Given the contextual specificity of our ethnographic laboratory studies, what justifies this presumed generalizability? Initially, this manuscript surveys typical responses to this question, but then it pursues an unusual one: the potential replicability of ethnographic results. This potential is hereby explored, via an ethnographic replication attempt—one designed and conducted in order to test the generalizability of a particular laboratory study, that of Latour and Woolgar’s classic Laboratory Life. The results of the ethnographic replication attempt are reported, and a remarkable degree of replicability is established. (shrink)

Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods? Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities, which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here (...) we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns—specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships. (shrink)

This study investigates the interaction between civil servants and politicians in a planning committee in a Swedish county council. As the committees are venues for preparation of future decision-making, civil servants and others are invited to inform and report to the politicians on different topics. The aim is to explore this local interaction process based on an analysis of requests and responses. It is shown that the communication between civil servants and politicians is pervaded by sociability in the form of (...) conversational routines. The article aims to recognize this sociability as an intrinsic part of knowledge coproduction processes. Civil servants and politicians negotiate different types of professional and common knowledge through routines that dislocate time, responsibility, roles, and protocol order. These lubricants – important but often circumvented in studies of policy-making – are explored as instances of conversational coproduction. (shrink)

Nasz problem z budynkami to dokładne przeciwieństwo problemu, z którym zmagał się Etienne Jules Marey, przeprowadzając swoje słynne badanie fizjologii ruchu. Przy pomocy wynalezionego przez siebie „fotorewolweru” chciał on uchwycić lot mewy w taki sposób, żeby móc zobaczyć każdą stopklatkę płynnego ruchu, którego mechanizm wymykał się obserwatorom aż do momentu pojawienia się tego właśnie wynalazku. My potrzebujemy czegoś przeciwnego, problem z budynkami polega bowiem na tym, że wydają się one dramatycznie statyczne. Uchwycenie ich jako ruchu, lotu czy serii przemian wydaje (...) się prawie niemożliwe. Wszyscy – zwłaszcza architekci – wiedzą, że budynek nie jest statycznym obiektem, ale raczej dynamicznym projektem. Nawet kiedy zostanie już wybudowany, każdy budynek zaczyna się starzeć, jest przekształcany przez użytkowników, a także modyfikowany przez wszystko, co wydarza się na zewnątrz i wewnątrz. Przeminie on lub zostanie odnowiony przy użyciu nowych materiałów, często zmieniony nie do poznania. Wiemy to wszystko, lecz problemem pozostaje to, że nie dysponujemy odpowiednikiem fotorewolweru Marey’a: kiedy myślimy o budynku, jest on zawsze nieruchomą, obojętną strukturą, przedstawianą w barwach procesowych2 na błyszczących stronach czasopism, przerzucanych przez klientów siedzących w poczekalniach biur projektowych. Skoro niemożność sfotografowania lotu mewy jako serii następujących po sobie stopklatek tak bardzo frustrowała Marey’a, jakże irytująca musi być dla nas niemożność zobrazowania płynności i ciągłego ruchu konstytuującego każdy budynek. W oparciu o dostępne mu dane wzrokowe Marey mógł ustalić fizjologię lotu dopiero po wynalezieniu sztucznego urządzenia. My również potrzebujemy narzędzia, abyśmy mogli przemienić statyczny obraz budynku w serię następujących po sobie stopklatek, które ostatecznie pokażą, że każdy budynek to tak naprawdę dynamiczny projekt. (shrink)

Although genealogy is a popular methodological choice for philosophers, a number of social scientists in numerous fields have taken it up as way of studying historical texts. How one might use genealogy as a methodological approach, however, is not always clear. In this article, I argue for the combination of critical discourse analysis with a genealogical ethos of analysis, despite some differences in their respective approaches. The aim of the article is to contribute to debates around how qualitative textual research (...) can be opened up as a site of contact, negotiation, and unification for genealogical and critical discourse analytic approaches. (shrink)

An analysis of the value of community vitality as it figures into the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.

An analysis of the nature of good governance as it figures into the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.

The starting point of the following inquiry addresses John Searle’s and Ian Hacking’s most prominent critique of contemporary “constructionism” in the 1990s. It is stimulated by the astonishing fact that neither Hacking nor Searle take into account Peter Berger’s and Thomas Luckmann’s classical essay and sociological masterpiece The Social Construction of Reality in their contributions. Critically revisiting Searle’s and Hacking’s critique on the so-called constructivist approach, the article demonstrates that both authors have failed to put forth a sociologically valid understanding (...) of the approach in question. The following analysis aims to deconstruct the conceptualizations offered by Searle and Hacking, and to reconstruct and defend the original sense of the term “social construction” as most prominently introduced by Berger and Luckmann to sociology, and social sciences in general. (shrink)

This paper discusses the reception and impact of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality. The article will, first, address Berger and Luckmann themselves and their approach to the book. In the next part, we will sketch the diffusion of the basic concept of the book. Then we want to show that the reception exhibits a particular open form, which allowed it to disperse into extremely different disciplines not only of the social sciences and the humanities. It is the (...) disciplinary distance in particular that detaches the diffusion of the concept from reference to the book. In the next part, we can see that this detachment leads to the variation of approaches to social construction. Particularly, it is the misidentification with constructivism that leads to misunderstandings, which will then be clarified in contrast to our reconsideration of the basic thesis of SCR. The conclusion will state that Berger and Luckmann’s concept therefore constitutes the common denominator of social constructivist approaches. (shrink)

This essay aims to clarify the value of developing systematic studies of ignorance as a component of any robust theory of knowledge. The author employs feminist efforts to recover and create knowledge of women's bodies in the contemporary women's health movement as a case study for cataloging different types of ignorance and shedding light on the nature of their production. She also helps us understand the ways resistance movements can be a helpful site for understanding how to identify, critique, and (...) transform ignorance. (shrink)

It may be that denouncing the ideals of objectivity or neutrality associated with the sciences leads us into a trap: that of accepting, in order to criticize it, that there would be a common identity for the many ways to produce science. Learning to laugh, we choose to laugh with and laugh at. But we accept the risk of being interested, that is, of giving up the position of a judge.

This article argues that understanding everyday practices in neurobiological labs requires us to take into account a variety of different action positions: self-conscious social actors, technical artifacts, conscious organisms, and organisms being merely alive. In order to understand the interactions among such diverse entities, highly differentiated conceptual tools are required. Drawing on the theory of the German philosopher and sociologist Helmuth Plessner, the paper analyzes experimenters as self-conscious social persons who recognize monkeys as conscious organisms. Integrating Plessner’s ideas into the (...) stock of concepts used in science and technology studies provides richer descriptions of laboratory life. In particular, this theory allows an understanding of a crucial feature of neurobiological brain research: the construction of the brain as the epistemic object of brain research. As such, the brain must be isolated from the acting and interacting organism in a complicated process. (shrink)