This essay is a critical review of Sandra Harding's The Science Question in Feminism. Her text constitutes a monumental effort to capture an overview of recent feminist critique of science and to develop a feminist dialectical and materialist conception of the history of masculinist science. In this analysis of Harding's work, the organizing categories as well as the main assumptions of the text are reconstructed for closer examination within the context of modern feminist critique of science and feminist theory in (...) general. Although a postive review of Harding's text is presented, questions are raised concerning the adequacy of socialist feminist assumptions for such a project, the limitations of Harding's theorization of gender, and the appropriateness of "postmodernism" as a final category of residence. (shrink)

Reveals how the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changed our view of the earth and argues that the advance of science set back the cause of women.

While acknowledging its theory-ladeness, Chalmers (history and philosophy, U. of Sydney) defends the objectivity of scientific knowledge against those critics for whom such knowledge is both subjective and ideological.

My contribution to this Symposium focuses on the links between sexuality and reproduction from the evolutionary point of view.' The relation between women's sexuality and reproduction is particularly importantb ecause of a vital intersectionb etweenp olitics and biology feminists have noticed, for more than a century, that women's identity is often defined in terms of her reproductive capacity. More recently, in the second wave of the feminist movement in the United States, debates about women'si dentityh ave explicitlyi ncludeds exuality;m uch (...) feminist argument in the late 1960's and early 1970's involved an attempt to separate out an autonomous female sexuality from women's reproductive functions. It is especially relevant, then, to examine biological arguments, particularlye volutionarya rgumentst, o see what they say about whether and how women's sexuality is related to reproduction. We shall find that many evolutionarya rgumentss eem to supportt he direct linkingo f female sexualitya nd reproductionY. et I will argue that this supporti s not well-groundedI. n fact, I think evolutionarye xplanationso f female sexuality exemplify how social beliefs and social agendas can influence very basic biological explanations of fundamental physiological processes. In this paper, I shall spend some time spelling out a few examples in which assumptions about the close link between reproduction and sexuality yield misleading results, then I shall conclude with a discussion of the consequences of this case study for issues in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In a new introduction, the authors describe how science and its social context were understood when this book was first published, and how the study of the history of science has changed since then.

This edition includes new essays by philosopher Michael Williams and literary scholar David Bromwich, as well as Rorty's previously unpublished essay "The ...

Two books have been particularly influential in contemporary philosophy of science: Karl R. Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery, and Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both agree upon the importance of revolutions in science, but differ about the role of criticism in science's revolutionary growth. This volume arose out of a symposium on Kuhn's work, with Popper in the chair, at an international colloquium held in London in 1965. The book begins with Kuhn's statement of his position followed by (...) seven essays offering criticism and analysis, and finally by Kuhn's reply. The book will interest senior undergraduates and graduate students of the philosophy and history of science, as well as professional philosophers, philosophically inclined scientists, and some psychologists and sociologists. (shrink)

Draws on interviews with many of the worlds leading scientists to discuss the possibility that humankind has reached the limits of scientific knowledge.

This fascinating study in the sociology of science explores the way scientists conduct, and draw conclusions from, their experiments. The book is organized around three case studies: replication of the TEA-laser, detecting gravitational rotation, and some experiments in the paranormal. "In his superb book, Collins shows why the quest for certainty is disappointed. He shows that standards of replication are, of course, social, and that there is consequently no outside standard, no Archimedean point beyond society from which we can lever (...) the intellects of our fellows. "- -Donald M. McCloskey, Journal of Economic Psychology "Collins is one of the genuine innovators of the sociology of scientific knowledge.... Changing Order is a rich and entertaining book. "- - Isis "The book gives a vivid sense of the contingent nature of research and is generally a good read. "- -Augustine Brannigan, Nature "This provocative book is a review of [Collins's] work, and an attempt to explain how scientists fit experimental results into pictures of the world.... A promising start for new explorations of our image of science, too often presented as infallibly authoritative. "- -Jon Turney, New Scientist. (shrink)

The first edition of this book profoundly challenged and divided students of philosophy, sociology, and the history of science when it was published in 1976. In this second edition, Bloor responds in a substantial new Afterword to the heated debates engendered by his book.

This unusually innovative book treats reflexivity, not as a philosophical conundrum, but as a practical issue that arises in the course of scholarly research and argument. In order to demonstrate the concrete and consequential nature of reflexivity, Malcolm Ashmore concentrates on an area in which reflexive "problems" are acute: the sociology of scientific knowledge. At the forefront of recent radical changes in our understanding of science, this increasingly influential mode of analysis specializes in rigorous deconstructions of the research practices and (...) textual products of the scientific enterprise. Through a series of detailed examinations of the practices and products of the sociology of scientific knowledge, Ashmore turns its own claims and findings back onto itself and opens up a whole new era of exploration beyond the common fear of reflexive self-destruction. (shrink)

Objectivity Under Attack: a fundamental feature of science is its ideal of objectivity, an ideal that subjects ...

Feminist science critics, in particular Sandra Harding, Carolyn Merchant, and Evelyn Fox Keller, claim that misogynous sexual metaphors played an important role in the rise of modern science. The writings of Francis Bacon have been singled out as an especially egregious instance of the use of misogynous metaphors in scientific philosophy. This paper offers a defense of Bacon.

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

Although The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most influential books of this century, its author, Thomas Kuhn, is notorious for disavowing most of the consequences wrought by his text. Insofar as these consequences have appeared "radical" or "antipositivist," this article argues that they are very misleading, and that Kuhn's complaints are therefore well placed. Indeed, Kuhn unwittingly succeeded where Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology tried and failed, namely, to alleviate the anxieties of alienated academics and defensive (...) policy-makers by teaching them that they could all profit from solving their own paradigmatic puzzles. The influence of tructure is traced from the philosophy of science into the social sciences and science policy. Special attention is paid to the import of the General Education in Science curriculum at Harvard, in which Kuhn taught for most of the period prior to writing tructure. Harvard President James Conant had designed this curriculum in order to keep "pure science" in the good favor of the American public, in whose eyes it suffered after the use of the atomic bomb. While Conant was keen to stress the distinctiveness of science from other social practices, Kuhn's model seemed to provide a blueprint for reconstituting any practice as a science. This enabled potentially antiscientific academics to become scientists themselves, thereby neutralizing any radical challenges to the ends of scientific inquiry. The article concludes by reconstructing some of the inchoate possibilities for radical critique that Kuhn's success preempted, and by making some suggestions for how they may be recovered in the present academic environment. (shrink)