The authors' commentary on Bruno Latour's "Technology is society made durable" provides the reader with an opportunity to become acquainted with actor-network theory.

This paper analyses the main narratives, rhetorical resources and themes deployed during public contemporary debates on stem cell research and cellular therapy in Brazil, an emergent global player. It examines the discursive rhetoric used to discuss adult and embryonic stem cell research and analyses the processes and main themes involved in the approval of the 2005 Biosecurity Law at the National Congress and, more specifically, during the 2007 public hearing at the Federal Supreme Court. Relying on previous academic work and (...) supported by the analysis of public audiences' transcriptions, key journal reports and 15 semi-structured face-to-face interviews, the paper focuses mainly on the common topics in the scientists' narratives to map the characteristics of the Brazilian debates and establish the main convergences and divergences between the positions taken by opposing lobbies. These are illustrated by selected statements on recurrent themes and assumptions. There are three main areas of focus: forms of scientific, technical and moral construction of discourse and regulation; strategies towards civil society's engagement and participation; and the country's contributions to global genetics and health biotechnology. The paper argues that the specificities of the narratives deployed by the different social actors are a product not solely of sociocultural and religious backgrounds and practices, but also of local SRC development and social awareness, of the exercise of citizens' rights, and of prevalent cultural trends in the local relations between science, medicine and society. (shrink)

(1992). A historical ethnography of a scientific anniversary in molecular biology: The first protein X‐ray photograph (1984, 1934) Social Epistemology: Vol. 6, The Historical Ethnography of Scientific Rituals, pp. 323-354.

This article analyzes the experiences of ecologists who used data they did not collect themselves. Specifically, the author examines the processes by which ecologists understand and assess the quality of the data they reuse, and investigates the role that standard methods of data collection play in these processes. Standardization is one means by which scientific knowledge is transported from local to public spheres. While standards can be helpful, the results show that knowledge of the local context is critical to ecologists' (...) reuse of data. Yet, this information is often left behind as data move from the private to the public world. The knowledge that ecologists acquire through fieldwork enables them to recover the local details that are so critical to their comprehension of data collected by others. Social processes also play a role in ecologists' efforts to judge the quality of data they reuse. (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)

This article offers an analysis of marketing as an ideological set of practices that makes cultural interventions designed to infuse social relations with biopolitical injunctions. We examine a contemporary site of heightened attention within marketing: the rise of online communities and the attendant profession of social media marketing managers. We argue that social media marketers disavow a core problem; namely, that the object at stake, the customer community, barely exists. The community therefore functions ideologically. We describe the ideological gymnastics necessary (...) for maintaining momentum behind a practice that barely exists and we ponder why such ideologies are necessary, and what they allow the marketer to do. Working with such concepts as ‘the wild’, ‘communicative capitalism’, and ‘biopolitical marketing’, we explore a genre of popular business literature that proselytizes for online customer communities and we reflect on the broader implications. (shrink)

Online discourse has created a new media environment for contributions to public life, one that challenges the social significance of the role of public intellectuals—intellectuals who, whether by choice or by circumstance, offer commentary on issues of the day. The value of such commentary is rooted in the assumption that, by virtue of their training and experience, intellectuals possess knowledge—that they understand what constitutes knowledge with respect to a particular topic, are able to distinguish it from mere opinion, and are (...) in a position to define its relevance in different contexts. When intellectuals comment on matters of public concern, they are accordingly presumed to speak truth, whether they are writing books or op-ed columns or appearing as guests on radio and television news programs. At the same time, with increasing frequency, discourse on public life is taking place online. This new digital environment is characterized by abundance—an abundance of speakers, discussion, and access. But has this abundance of discourse—this democratization of knowledge, as some describe it—brought with it a corresponding increase in truth? Casting doubt on the assertion that online discourse, with its proliferation of voices, will somehow yield collective wisdom, Speaking Power to Truth raises concerns that this wealth of digitally enabled commentary is, in fact, too often bereft of the hallmarks of intellectual discourse: an epistemological framework and the provision of evidence to substantiate claims. Instead, the pursuit of truth finds itself in competition with the quest for public reputation, access to influence, and enhanced visibility. But as knowledge is drawn into the orbit of power, and as the line between knowledge and opinion is blurred, what role will the public intellectual play in the promotion and nurturing of democratic processes and goals? In exploring the implications of the digital transition, the contributors to Speaking Power to Truth provide both empirical evidence of, and philosophical reflection on, the current and future role of the public intellectual in a technologically mediated public sphere. Contributions by Barry Cooper, Jacob Foster, Karim-Ally Kassam, Boaz Miller, Liz Pirnie, and Eleanor Townsley. (shrink)

Part of the work for this paper was done during the tenure of a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. I am grateful for financial support provided by the National Science Foundation, Grant #BNS-8011494, and for the assistance of the staff of the Center. I also want to thank David Bloor, Stephen Downes, David Hull and Andy Pickering for offering good advice and criticism, some of which I have heeded.

The thesis proposes an account of the means of scientific representation focused on similarity, or more specifically, on the notion of “creative similarity”. I first distinguish between two different questions regarding the problem of representation: the question about the constituents and the question about the means of representation (following Suárez 2003; van Fraassen 2008). I argue that, although similarity is not a good candidate for constituent of representation, it can satisfactorily answer the question about the means of representation if adequately (...) characterized. To motivate this position, I dispute the main arguments offered against similarity as means of representation, namely the arguments from variety, vagueness, and misrepresentation, and contend that similarity plays a central epistemic role in practices of representing in science. The study of the role of similarity in scientific practice, I argue, requires the analysis of the uses of judgments of similarity in the construction of scientific models. I examine the cases of the Mississippi Basin Model and the San Francisco Bay Model to illustrate how judgments of similarity are directly involved in the production of epistemically fruitful models. Informed by the practical investigation developed throughout the thesis, I finally outline what I call the creative similarity account of the means of representation. The notion of “creative similarity” helps to capture the way in which similarity, as means of representation, intervenes in actual practices of representing, namely, in the form of a productive interplay of judgments of similarity and distortions (i.e. idealizations, abstractions, simplifications), which is employed by resourceful agents with the aim of understanding aspects of the natural world. (shrink)

If any nature of science perspective is to be incorporated in science-related curricula, it is hard to imagine a satisfactory didactic toolkit that neglects the social studies of science, the academic field of study of the institutional structures and networks of science. Knowledge production takes place in a world populated by actors, instruments, and ideas, and various epistemic cultures are responsible for providing the concepts, abstractions, and techniques that slowly trickle down the information pathways to become stabilized in university curricula (...) or ossified in high-school science, losing much of the tacit knowledge along the way that enabled the production of knowledge in the first place. The discussion of the sociology of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge is followed by a short overview of recent approaches in science studies and the studies of expertise. (shrink)

The concept of natural kind is center stage in the debates about scientific realism. Champions of scientific realism such as Richard Boyd hold that our most developed scientific theories allow us to “cut the world at its joints” (Boyd, 1981, 1984, 1991). In the long run we can disclose natural kinds as nature made them, though as science progresses improvements in theory allow us to revise the extension of natural kind terms.

Showcasing original arguments for well-defined positions, as well as clear and concise statements of sophisticated philosophical views, this volume is an ...

Durkheim’s epistemology, the argument for the social origins of the categories of the understanding, is his most important and most neglected argument. This argument has been confused with his sociology of knowledge and Durkheim’s overall position has been misunderstood as a consequence. This lead to the argument that there are two Durkheims: a functionalist positivist and an idealist. The current popularity of a “cultural" or “ideological” interpretation of Durkheim is as much a misunderstanding of his position as the “functional" interpretation (...) from which the current interpretations seek to rescue him. Durkheim articulated a sophisticated epistemology in the classical sense, a point that has been entirely missed. The argument, which is articulated mainly in the central chapters of “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life”, locates the origin of the fundamental categories of thought in the concrete empirical details of enacted practices. For social constructivists, social consensus, structure, or shared practices lead persons to believe certain things or think in certain ways. Because persons share the same beliefs, they act in ways that reinforce those beliefs. For Durkheim, however, the genesis of the categories of the understanding in enacted practice solved the problem of indeterminacy. (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)

: The main contribution of this paper for social studies of scientific practice is to use and further elaborate the concept of experimental system. It is expanded from mere epistemic concerns to also incorporate the built-in practicality and societal relevance of scientific research. For this, an analysis of object construction by a potato-biotechnology research group is presented. The group's object of activity is conceptualized as a dual one comprising both the epistemic and applied objectives. The application object points to the (...) virus-resistant cultivated potato under construction, the epistemic object to the knowledge on the virus-resistance mechanism. Two major phases of the group's work are perceived as distinct experimental systems. The transition between them is analysed in terms of a gradual evolution characterised by network collaboration, ad hoc improvization, resistance, opportunism and informal interaction. (shrink)

ArgumentSince the linguistic turn, the role of rhetoric in the circulation and the popular representation of knowledge has been widely accepted in science studies. This article aims to analyze not a textual form of scientific rhetoric, but the crucial role of materiality in scientific debates. It introduces the concept ofmaterial rhetoricto understand the promotional regimes in which material objects play an essential argumentative role. It analyzes the phenomenon by looking at two students of prehistory from nineteenth-century Belgium.In the study of (...) human prehistory and evolution, material data are either fairly abundant stone tools or very scarce fossil bones. These two types of material data stand for two different strategies in material rhetoric. In this article, the first strategy is exemplified by Aimé Rutot, who gathered great masses of eoliths. The second strategy is typified by the example of Julien Fraipont, who based his scientific career on only two Neanderthal skeletons. Rutot sent his “artifacts” to a very wide audience, while Fraipont showed his skeletons to only a few selected scholars. Unlike Rutot, however, Fraipont was able to monitor his audience's interpretation of the finds by means of personal contacts. What an archaeologist gains in reach, he or she apparently loses in control. In this article we argue that only those scholars who find the right balance between the extremes of reach and control will prove to be successful. (shrink)

In an ironic rejoinder to the postmodern politics of nature, I will adopt an anthropological perspective on culture, which is conspicuous by its absence in the latest wave of science studies, and reformulate the distinction between nature and culture as a reflexive distinction within culture that emerges with modernity. In order to countering the hypertextualism of the constructivists, I will next sketch out a realist theory of nature. Combining the transcendental realism of Roy Bhaskar with the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund (...) Husserl, I will then try to outline the contours of a realist phenomenology of the ontological regions of physical, animal and human nature. Resuming my anthropological considerations on culture, I will finish the article with a progressive account of how the opposition between regional ontologies and regional typologies could be overcome. (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse and criticize the argument of the experimenters' regress proposed by Harry Collins in 1985. In order to do that, I begin with an introduction to the experiments that aimed to detect gravity waves performed by Joseph Weber during 1970, then I analyse and discuss both forms of the argument: the epistemological and the ontological. Finally, after giving an outline of a theory of experimental reproduction and an explication of the concept of (...) replication, I propose two ways of avoiding the experimenters' regress. (shrink)

Methodological norms are seen as rules defining a competitive game, and it is argued that rational recognition-seeking scientists can reach a collective agreement about which specific norms serve better their individual interests, especially if the choice is made `under a veil of ignorance', i.e. , before knowing what theory will be proposed by each scientist. Norms for theory assessment are distinguished from norms for theory choice (or inference rules), and it is argued that pursuit of recognition only affects this second (...) type of rule. An inference rule similar to `eliminative induction' is defended on the basis of such a possible agreement. According to this contractarian approach, both the explanation and the justification of scientific norms only need to refer to the preferences of individual scientists, without assuming the existence of `collective' points of view. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss expertise by considering the activity of reading. Cognitive scientists have traditionally conceptualised reading as a single, well-defined task, namely the decoding of letter sequences into meaningful sequences of speech sounds. This definition captures a core feature of the reading activity at the computational level, but it is an overly narrow model of how reading behaviour occurs in the real world. We propose a more expansive model of expertise. In our view, expertise in general is best (...) conceptualised as a distributed process that takes place within a cultural-cognitive ecosystem. Our model allows for a more inclusive view of expertise in reading. We argue that reading is better understood as a manifold task domain that admits multiple reasonable criteria for evaluating performance. We draw on ethnographic data to show how our model allows for a wider appreciation of what expertise in reading amounts to in educational contexts. (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)

This chapter explores perspectivism in the American Pragmatist tradition. On the one hand, the thematization of perspectivism in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science can benefit from resources in the American Pragmatist philosophical tradition. On the other hand, the Pragmatists have interesting and innovative, pluralistic views that can be illuminated through the lens of perspectivism. I pursue this inquiry primarily through examining relevant sources from the Pragmatist tradition. I will illustrate productive engagements between pragmatism and perspectivism in three areas: in (...) the pragmatists’ fallibilistic theories of inquiry and truth, in their pluralistic metaphysics, and in their views on cultural pluralism. While there are some potential sticking points between pragmatism and perspectivism, particularly around the visual metaphor of perspective, these philosophical approaches nonetheless have much to learn from each other. Perspectivism is in danger of falling between the horns of pernicious relativism and a platitudinous view of the limits of human perception and cognition. The pragmatists accounts of truth and reality open the possibility of a more thoroughgoing perspectivism. I will follow this thread through Charles S. Peirce’s, William James’, and John Dewey’s theories of inquiry and truth, Peirce’s evolutionary metaphysics, James’ radical pluralism, Dewey’s cultural naturalism, Richard Rorty’s anti-essentialism, Jane Addams’ standpoint epistemology, W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of race consciousness, Horace Kallen’s and Alain LeRoy Locke’s cultural pluralism, and Mary Parker Follett’s account of pluralistic integration. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe societal context within which science is pursued generally acts as a productive force in the generation of knowledge. To analyze this action it is helpful to consider particular modes of mediation through which societal concerns are projected into the very local and esoteric concerns of a particular domain of research. One such mode of mediation occurs through material systems. Here I treat two such systems – the steam engine and the electric telegraph – in the natural philosophy of (...) William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).The steam engine illustratesconceptualmediation. It simultaneously instantiates “labor value” in political economy and “work” in engineering mechanics, thereby identifying the two concepts in the region of their common reference. The partial identification carries with it a structural analogy between a network of concepts from political economy and a similar network in natural philosophy, providing a potent heuristic for the reformulation and further development of dynamics.The electric telegraph illustratesmethodologicalmediation. It projects the interests of engineering and industry into the interests of electromagnetic theory and vice versa, thereby establishing, in Thomson's view, a Baconian unity of truth and utility. As the common reference of theory and practice, the telegraph locates the truth of theoretical knowledge in its utility and the utility of practical knowledge in its truth.These particular cases of conceptual and methodological mediation indicate how the local practices, concepts, and interests of a research specialty, or subculture, draw on and are adapted to those of the larger culture within which they develop. Thus the analysis of mediation leads to an ecological model of the social construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

More recent advancements in digital technologies have significantly alleviated the dissemination of new scientific ideas as well as the storing, searching and retrieval of large amounts of published research findings. While not denying the benefits of this novel ‘economy of memory,’ this paper endeavors to shed light on the ways in which the use of digital technologies may be linked to a distortion of the system of formal publications that facilitates the effective dissemination and collaborative building of scientific knowledge. Through (...) combining three different strands of discussion that are often left separate – those pertaining to the cognitive effects of new technological memory systems, those pertaining to citation and publishing practices, and those regarding the effects of formalizing modes of research governance – it is also shown that this distortion is not merely a consequence of technological developments alone. Rather, such a distortion is inseparable from and potentially aggravated by the spreading of increasingly dysfunctional, formalizing research governance mechanisms. It is argued that these mechanisms run the risk of fostering the proliferation of knowledge practices that are characterized by an increasing degree of superficiality as well as the strategic publication of research that is of a decreasing degree of originality. If left unaddressed, this may pose a serious threat to the efficiency and effectiveness of the formal record of scientific knowledge as a tool for the dissemination of original research. By extension, this may in the long run seriously undermine the capacity of the publicly funded research system more generally. (shrink)

The present thesis is based on a scientifically-informed, contextualized and historicized reading of Ludwik Fleck. In addition to his monograph, the material studied includes his additional philosophical writings, his internationally-published scientific articles and two, thus-far-unstudied postwar Polish papers related to his Buchenwald experiences. The sources provided by Fleck have been traced back to the time of their origin. Based on the above material, it is argued that, rather than relativizing science and deeply influencing Kuhn, Fleck, attempting to participate in the (...) current debates, is an ardent proponent of science, offering an internal account of its pursuit that accords with his oft-contested epistemic concepts, e.g., Denkzwang, Sinnsehen and Kopplungen. The exposure of his description of the Wassermann reaction discloses a highly selective reading of the sources available at the time, but also reveals its relation to the current debate on Einzelwissenschaften, or the standing of new emerging disciplines versus age-old ones, all occasioned by the remarkable progress of science that has also affected philosophy. The divide between philosophers and scientists on the philosophical implications of modern physics is exposed, as is Fleck’s heuristic use of the latter topic in his epistemology. A more realistic account of his often-valued scientific accomplishments is provided. It is argued that the modern interpretation or received humanist view of Fleck is based on the opposition, at the time Fleck’s monograph was rediscovered, of STS writers to a scientifically-informed reading of his texts. An additional corrective to the received view of Fleck is found in some of his postwar Polish papers related his Buchenwald experiences. The latter might also provide an answer to some of the contradictions inherent in the modern mythology surrounding Fleck. In amply exposing the precarious situation of the time, and the complexity of the ethical issues at stake, Fleck’s papers in fact generate age-old philosophical questions still worth contemplating. (shrink)

The present thesis is based on a scientifically informed reading of Fleck. In addition to the monograph, the material includes his additional philosophical writings and also his internationally published scientific articles. The sources provided by Fleck have been traced back to the time of their origin. Based on the above material, it is argued that rather than relativizing science, and thereby deeply influencing Kuhn, Fleck, attempting to participate in the current debates, is an ardent proponent of science, offering an internal (...) account of its pursuit that accords with his often-contested epistemic concepts. The exposure of his description of the Wassermann reaction discloses a highly selected reading of the, at the time, available sources, but also its relation to the current debate on Einzelwissenschaften, or the standing of new emerging disciplines versus age-old ones, all occasioned by the remarkable progress of science that also affected philosophy. The divide between philosophers and scientists on the philosophical implications of modern physics is exposed as well as Fleck’s heuristic use of the latter topic in his epistemology. A more realistic account of his scientific accomplishment is provided that includes the unfeasibility of the manufacturing of an anti-typhus vaccine based on urine. It is finally argued that the modern interpretation, or the received humanist view of Fleck, is based on the, at the time of the rediscovery of the monograph, already endorsed program of STS writers opposing a scientifically informed reading of his texts. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the origins and subsequent reception of the paper "Ontological Gerrymandering: The anatomy of social problems explanations", published in 1985. It describes the circumstances of my turning up at McGill University as a Visiting Professor in Sociology and meeting Dorothy, then a graduate student and the TA assigned to an undergraduate course on Social Problems which I was asked to teach. The paper reflects on the twin benefits: of an interloper, from Europe and from Science and Technology (...) Studies (STS), entering the exotic and heady fray of North American social problems; and of Dorothys steady and resolute guidance in introducing me to a new field. The paper suggests some reasons for the endurance of the papers arguments, more than 35 years after its publication, drawing on some parallel developments in Social Problems and STS. It asks why has there been rather little mutual interaction between these disciplines, given their common concern with questions, among others, about values, effects and interventions in academic scholarship. The paper concludes that many more of us might have done well to pursue the path of strident agnosticism. (shrink)

The social and legal implications of forensic DNA are paramount. For this reason, forensic DNA enjoys ample attention from legal, bioethics, and science and technology studies scholars. This article contributes to the scholarship by focusing on the neglected issue of sameness. We investigate a forensic courtroom case which started in the early ’90s and focus on three modes of making similarities: creating equality before the law, making identity, and establishing standards. We argue that equality before the law is not merely (...) a principle but a practice. In the context of DNA research, equality refers to using standardized technology and procedures to identify the criminal suspect. Our case shows the work at stake in introducing a new technology into the courtroom and serves as a lens, magnifying how contingencies and uncertainties are managed and ordered in everyday court practices to arrive at an equal treatment of the suspect. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the roles and identities of engineers constituting one of the fundamental, but a completely indescribable community in modern big science with particle accelerators. Large communities of accelerator and detector specialists, which replaced experimenters and instrumentalists of the middle of the last century, themselves exhibit a complex structure and are divided. However, this division is in turn grounded on the division of those whose activities focus on the phenomena of nature considered independent of human beings and (...) those who design processes and phenomena of an artificial, technical nature. Nevertheless, in terms of their modus operandi and identity, the kinship between engineers and experimental scientists is considerable. I argue that such exclusion of the engineering community from epistemic practices can serve as an example of participatory injustice. As one of the ways to transcend participatory injustice, I suggest that the communities should be encouraged to work together in epistemically tantamount roles while structural hindrances to the mobility between communities need to be alleviated. (shrink)

The main aims of the article are as follows: to indicate that cognition may be satisfactorily modelled from a constructivist perspective; to reconstruct the latest tendencies within science and technology studies encapsulated in the term constructivism rather than in the notion of social constructivism; to show how technoscience is conceptualised from the constructivist standpoint.

This is an essay on philosophical methodology, the disciplinary prejudices of the Anglophone philosophical world, and how these things interact with some aspects of the content and form of Latin American philosophy to preclude the latter's integration with mainstream Anglophone philosophical work. Among the topics discussed of interest to analytic philosophers: metaphilosophy, the status hierarchy of philosophical subfields, experimental philosophy, and patterns of openness and exclusion in philosophy. Among the topics of interest to philosophers interested in Latin American philosophy and (...) comparative philosophy: the nature of disputes about the existence of Latin American philosophy, the significance of this genre of writing, how contributions to it can proceed, and why metaphilosophical concerns in Latin America are problematic for the prospects for integration with the Anglophone philosophical world. (shrink)

Drawing on interviews and observational work with practicing U.K. plant scientists, this article uses Michel Callon's work as a tool to explore the issue of collaboration between academic science and business, in particular, calls by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council for a return to “public good” plant science. In an article titled “Is Science a Public Good?” Callon contributed to the debate about the commercialization of science by suggesting that commercialization and the public good need not be incompatible. (...) Moving away from arguments that center on the effects of business involvement in science, he suggested that analysts use another model, centered on “diversity.” This model allows us to ask what society might want from science, what public good science might look like, and how public good science can be ensured while also recognizing that science cannot be easily separated from the market. (shrink)

Within recent feminist theorizing the significance of social location has been overestimated, while the power of argument has been underestimated. We do not need to retreat to notions of ‘story-telling’ as the strongest claim to knowledge possible by feminist analysis. Rather, we should draw on the power of argument. This article addresses some dilemmas in debates around the projects of recognition, redistribution and transformation, and the claims to knowledge made in each. Further, it argues for the integration of the concerns (...) of equality and difference. The theoretical argument is supported by examples drawn from practical politics, including the development of democratic procedures, postcolonialism, the UNDP indicators sometimes used in development policy and suffrage movements. (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)

This thesis is a contribution to feminist laboratory studies and a critical engagement with the natural sciences, or more precisely research on the biochemical workings and deadly relations of Alzheimer’s disease emanating from a year of field work in a Drosophila fly lab. The natural sciences have been a point of fascination within the field of gender studies for decades. Such sciences produce knowledge on what gets to count as nature and natural, healthy or sick, normal or not, and they (...) have done it with great societal authority and impact throughout European modernity. However, feminist technoscience scholars argue that science and knowledge is socially produced, and political too. Concepts such as nature, animal, human, body, sex, and life itself are not simply given natural realities but phenomena processed through the naturecultures of the laboratory. Situated within such theoretical and methodological approaches, this thesis wonders how scientific facts about Alzheimer’s disease are made in the lab today. What kinds of realities, bodies and ethico-political concerns are enacted? Who gets to live and who gets to die in everyday laboratory practices? Theoretically, the thesis is grounded, particularly, within Karen Barad’s agential realism and posthumanist performativity, and as such it accounts for human and nonhuman entanglements through which AD is performed in the lab in relational ways. In other words, the thesis explores how AD is enacted in the bodies of transgenic fruit flies, as these flies embody the disease, live and die with it. Last but not least, the thesis explores the materialities of death, dying, embodiment and biological waste in a biochemistry lab as constitutive parts of the produced knowledge about AD. (shrink)

Monsters, argues Haraway, are sites of confusion and hybridity, entities that defy easy categorization and, as a consequence, hold promise, pleasure, and peril. Haraway adds that monsters are also not accidental or innocent: their creation requires sustained work, their existence has effects. Thus, to understand how Frankenstein came to be in Lilliput, the theme of this special edition, it is crucial to examine how monsters are constructed and how they do things in the world.In this article I propose to start, (...) if modestly, that examination. To do so I draw upon ethnographic data generated at two conferences held in 2005 to investigate some of the processes through which the monster of “nano”—this elusive and emergent entity—was brought to life by social scientists and humanities scholars. My initial goal is to explore how nano was defined, framed, and analyzed at these meetings—on the ethics and history of nano, respectively—and how these different ways of constituting and enacting nano have shaped subsequent understandings of, and interactions with, nano. The article next examines the stances and stakes of those who, through their involvement, became nano practitioners, and the ways in which nano was disciplined through their practices. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the particular issue of a biomedical research team engaging itself in different “trading zones” (Galison 1997). We do so by following the specific process of setting up a new microscope. We start by briefly introducing our general understanding of the concept of “trading zone.” Then we focus on the empirical material we collected, starting from the microscope as the researchers we followed were setting it up. Our analysis is twofold: we first describe the acts we (...) have been witnessing, then contrast them with the surrounding discourses and provide them with a rationale. We argue that the team created a sense of unity among its individual members and how this unity, though precarious, was needed and desired in order to further engage in a trading zone. (shrink)

This volume, The Brazilian Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, is the first attempt to present to a general audience, works from Brazil on this subject. The included papers are original, covering a remarkable number of relevant topics of philosophy of science, logic and on the history of science. The Brazilian community has increased in the last years in quantity and in quality of the works, most of them being published in respectable international journals on the subject. The (...) chapters of this volume are forwarded by a general introduction, which aims to sketch not only the contents of the chapters, but it is conceived as a historical and conceptual guide to the development of the field in Brazil. The introduction intends to be useful to the reader, and not only to the specialist, helping them to evaluate the increase in production of this country within the international context. (shrink)

Spatial representations, metaphors and imaginaries have been the mainstay of internet research for along time. Instead of repeating these themes, this paper seeks toanswer the question of how we might understand the conceptof time in relation to internet research. After a brief excursuson the general history of the concept, this paper proposes threedifferent approaches to the conceptualisation of internet time.The common thread underlying all the approaches is the notionof time as an assemblage of elements such as technical artefacts, social relations (...) and metaphors. By drawing out time in this way, the paper addresses the challenge of thinking of internet time as coexistence, a clash of fluxes, metaphors, lived experiences and assemblages. In other words, this paper proposes a way to articulate internet time as a multiplicity. (shrink)

This paper aims to build an integrated account of the history of twentieth-century laboratories. The historical literature is fragmented, which has led to the impression that one type of laboratory has dominated, or has become more important than other types. The university laboratory has also unjustly shaped the conceptualization of other types of laboratory. This paper approaches laboratories as sites of organized knowledge production, and as entities engaged in different activities for different audiences at any point in time. Eight types (...) of laboratory are identified, and their developments in the twentieth century are sketched. The two world wars of that century and models of innovation, building links between knowledge production in the laboratory and the impact of this knowledge outside the laboratory, are important catalysts of this history. The paper underlines that different types of laboratory have existed side by side, and continue to exist side by side. (shrink)

A participant–observer who is both informed and interested in ethical issues, and is embedded within a nanotechnology research and development facility may be able to influence the ethical awareness of researchers in nanotechnology, and tease out the societal implications of the work being conducted. Two inter-disciplinary methods were employed: (1) regular involvement in the technical and scientific research at the facility by the participant–observer, and (2) repeated interactions and discussions between the participant–observer and the scientists. As a result of this (...) qualitative approach, an ethics questionnaire was developed and tested. This questionnaire has been incorporated into the admissions procedures for researchers as they commence use of the nanotech facility. The questionnaire highlights the importance of ethical issues in nanotechnology research and draws researchers into an engagement with possible ethical consequences and with future societal implications of their work. (shrink)