Philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science have grown interested in the daily practices of scientists. Recent studies have drawn linkages between scientific innovations and more ordinary procedures, craft skills, and sources of sponsorship. These studies dispute the idea that science is the application of a unified method or the outgrowth of a progressive history of ideas. This book critically reviews arguments and empirical studies in two areas of sociology that have played a significant role in the 'sociological turn' in science (...) studies: ethnomethodology and the sociology of scientific knowledge. In both fields, efforts to study scientific practices have led to intractable difficulties and debates, due in part to scientistic and foundationalist commitments that remain entrenched with social-scientific research policies and descriptive language. The central purpose of this book is to explore the possibility of an empirical approach to the epistemic contents of science that avoids the pitfalls of scientism and foundationalism. (shrink)

This book provides an exciting and diverse philosophical exploration of the role of practice and practices in human activity. It contains original essays and critiques of this philosophical and sociological attempt to move beyond current problematic ways of thinking in the humanities and social sciences. It will be useful across many disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, science, cultural theory, history and anthropology.

One of the most influential philosophers in the English-speaking world, Charles Taylor is internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly to debates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity. In _Modern Social Imaginaries,_ Taylor continues his recent reflections on the theme of multiple modernities. To account for the differences among modernities, Taylor sets out his idea of the social imaginary, a broad understanding of the way a given people imagine their collective social life. Retelling the history (...) of Western modernity, Taylor traces the development of a distinct social imaginary. Animated by the idea of a moral order based on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterized by three key cultural forms—the economy, the public sphere, and self-governance. Taylor’s account of these cultural formations provides a fresh perspective on how to read the specifics of Western modernity: how we came to imagine society primarily as an economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, how we began to imagine the public sphere as a metaphorical place for deliberation and discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern, and how we invented the idea of a self-governing people capable of secular “founding” acts without recourse to transcendent principles. Accessible in length and style, _Modern Social Imaginaries_ offers a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West and the different forms modernity has taken around the world. (shrink)

Actor network theory is a powerful approach which combines the insights of post-structuralism with an analysis of the materials of social life. This controversial and path-breaking volume extends ANT beyond studies of technology, power and organisation to the body, subjectivity, politics, and cultural difference, and puts it into cutting-edge dialogue with feminism, anthropology, psychology and economics.

In this rich examination of how we inherit and transform myths, Hans Blumenberg continues his study of the philosophical roots of the modern world. Work on Myth is in five parts. The first two analyze the characteristics of myth and the stages in the West's work on myth, including long discussions of such authors as Freud, Joyce, Cassirer, and Val+1⁄4ry. The latter three parts present a comprehensive account of the history of the Prometheus myth, from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Gide (...) and Kafka. This section includes a detailed analysis of Goethe's lifelong confrontation with the Prometheus myth, which is a unique synthesis of "psychobiography" and history of ideas. Hans Blumenberg is Professor of Philosophy at the University of M++nster. Work on Myth is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot's ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French (...) sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world. In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation. On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences. (shrink)

Issues of responsibility in the world of nanotechnology are becoming explicit with the emergence of a discourse on ‘responsible development’ of nanoscience and nanotechnologies. Much of this discourse centres on the ambivalences of nanotechnology and of promising technology in general. Actors must find means of dealing with these ambivalences. Actors’ actions and responses to ambivalence are shaped by their position and context, along with strategic games they are involved in, together with other actors. A number of interviews were conducted with (...) industrial actors with the aim of uncovering their ethical stances towards responsible development of nanotechnology. The data shows that standard repertoires of justification of nanotechnological development were used. Thus, the industrial actors fell back on their position and associated responsibilities. Such responses reinforce a division of moral labour in which industrial actors and scientists can focus on the progress of science and technology, while other actors, such as NGOs, are expected to take care of broader considerations, such as ethical and social issues. (shrink)

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

Building on recent theories ofscience in society, such as that provided bythe `Mode 2' framework, this paper argues thatgovernments should reconsider existingrelations among decision-makers, experts, andcitizens in the management of technology.Policy-makers need a set of ` technologies ofhumility' for systematically assessing theunknown and the uncertain. Appropriate focalpoints for such modest assessments are framing,vulnerability, distribution, and learning.

The promise of scientific and technological innovation – particularly in fields such as nanotechnology – is increasingly set against what has been articulated as a deficit in public trust in both the new technologies and regulatory mechanisms. Whilst the development of new technology is cast as providing contributions to both quality of life and national competitiveness, what has been termed a ‘legitimacy crisis’ is seen as threatening the vitality of this process. However in contrast to the risk debates that dominated (...) the technological controversies of the late 1990s the vitality of technological innovation is now cast as vulnerable to lack of public confidence and trust in the regulatory and governance structures upon which such innovation depends. In order to address this deficit in public trust, science policy has increasingly turned to the social sciences, suggesting that public values might be incorporated into the development of nanotechnology at an early stage. Public ambivalence therefore constitutes the problem addressed by the increasingly central role that public engagement and participation play in contemporary science policy. Although the recent proliferation of public engagement activities is premised on the need to address this ambivalence through direct engagement, we re-interpret ambivalence as an engaged – rather than passive – mode of relating to technological determinism. Whilst the move toward forms of direct public engagement might be regarded as symptomatic of the emergence of affective mode of governance we interpret public ambivalence as a nested set of enthusiasms and anxieties. Accordingly we suggest that public engagement might be re-thought, utilising ambivalence as a creative resource, rather than as the problem. (shrink)

During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening (...) Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social “impacts” of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics. (shrink)

The five narratives identified by the DEEPEN-project are interpreted in terms of the ancient story of desire, evil, and the sacred, and the modern narratives of alienation and exploitation. The first three narratives of lay ethics do not take stock of what has radically changed in the modern world under the triple and joint evolution of science, religion, and philosophy. The modern narratives, in turn, are in serious need of a post-modern deconstruction. Both critiques express the limits of humanism. They (...) do not imply, however, that these narratives should not be taken seriously. In particular, the enduring presence of three ancient narratives in laypeople’s symbolic thought is highly significant in terms of the role that the logic of the sacred keeps playing in the workings of modern societies. Lay people’s implicit understanding of how modern technology tends towards catastrophe and apocalypse provides the strongest argument for taking these narratives seriously. (shrink)

"Every word, like a sacred object, has its place. No _précis_ is possible. This extraordinary book must be read."—Edmund Carpenter, _New York Times Book Review _ "No outline is possible; I can only say that reading this book is a most exciting intellectual exercise in which dialectic, wit, and imagination combine to stimulate and provoke at every page."—Edmund Leach, _Man _ "Lévi-Strauss's books are tough: very scholarly, very dense, very rapid in argument. But once you have mastered him, human history (...) can never be the same, nor indeed can one's view of contemporary society. And his latest book, _The Savage Mind_, is his most comprehensive and certainly his most profound. Everyone interested in the history of ideas _must_ read it; everyone interested in human institutions _should _read it."—J. H. Plumb, _Saturday Review_ "A constantly stimulating, informative and suggestive intellectual challenge."—Geoffrey Gorer, _The Observer_, London. (shrink)

One of the aims of the DEEPEN project was to deepen ethical understanding of issues related to emerging nanotechnologies through an interdisciplinary approach utilizing insights from philosophy, ethics, and the social sciences. Accordingly, part of its final report was dedicated to the question of what was accomplished with regards to this aim and what further research is required. It relates two insights: Nanotechnologies intensify the ambivalence of ongoing, long-term developments; and yet, our intuitions and received story-lines fail us as a (...) guide to ethical and political matters concerning nanotechnologies. (shrink)

"Charles Taylor presents a fundamental challenge to neoliberal apologists for the new world order--but not only to them.

Now, in Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, path-breaking scholar Michael M. J. Fischer moves the discussion to a consideration of the ...

Pragmatic sociology is often read as a reaction to and an alternative to Bourdieu’s ‘critical sociology’. This article, in contrast, offers an assessment of pragmatic sociology in terms of its contribution to the theory of culture in general and its affinities with repertoire theory in particular. Whereas the tendency has been to conceive of repertoires as largely unstructured entities, pragmatic sociology has demonstrated a systematic interest in their internal contents and structure, which it has even expanded through its more recent (...) turn to historical and macro comparative analysis. In the process, however, pragmatic sociology has also been leaning towards a form of cultural sociology that actually challenges some major aspects of repertoire theory–thus also bringing into relief the dilemmas facing any attempt at further elaboration of what is now a growing strand of cultural theory. (shrink)

Cognitive forms vary considerably as a human being detaches herself from what is closest and most personal and moves to communicate — in the broad sense of taking part in a common matter — across increasing relational distances. The article proposes to deal with the variety of cognitive formats which cannot `commonize' cognition to an equal degree, relating them to a set of regimes of engagement with the world that are identified in terms of the dependency between the human agent (...) and her environment. The good that engagement aims to guarantee orients how reality is grasped and specifies the format of what constitutes relevant information. This analysis offers new insight into the composition of communities as well as persons who have to cope with the plurality of cognitive formats and engagements from the very familiar to the most public. (shrink)

This article looks at the strong links between Deleuze's molecular ontology and the fields of complexity and emergence, and argues that Deleuze's work implies a ‘philosophy of technology’ that is both open and dynamic. Following Simondon and von Uexküll, Deleuze suggests that technical objects are ontologically unstable, and are produced by processes of individuation and self-organization in complex relations with their environment. For Deleuze design is not imposed from without, but emerges from within matter. The fundamental departure for Deleuze, on (...) the basis of such an ontology, is to conceive of modes of relating to the evolution of technology. In this way Deleuze, along with Guattari, provides the basis for an ethics and a politics of becoming and emergent control that constitutes an alternative to the hubris of contemporary reductionist accounts of new areas such as nanotechnology. (shrink)

This paper analyses the recent widespread moves to 'restore' public trust in science by developing an avowedly two-way, public dialogue with science initiatives. Noting how previously discredited and supposedly abandoned public deficit explanations of 'mistrust' have actually been continually reinvented, it argues that this is a symptom of a continuing failure of scientific and policy institutions to place their own science-policy institutional culture into the frame of dialogue, as possible contributory cause of the public mistrust problem.

This paper aims to review different discourses within the emerging field of ethical reflection on nanotechnology. I will start by analysing the early stages of this debate, showing how it has been focused on searching for legitimacy for this sphere of moral inquiry. I will then characterise an ethical approach, common to many authors, which frames ethical issues in terms of risks and benefits. This approach identifies normative issues where there are conflicts of interest or where challenges to the fundamental (...) values of our society arise. In response to the limitations of this approach, other commentators have called for more profound analysis of the limits of our knowledge, and have appealed to values, such as sustainability or responsibility, which should, they suggest, inform nanotechnological development (I will define this approach as a “sophisticated form of prudence”). After showing the ways in which these frameworks are limited, I will examine more recent developments in debates on nanoethics which call for the contextualisation of ethical discourse in its ontological, epistemic and socio-economic and political reflections. Such contextualisation thus involves inquiry into the ‘metaphysical research program’ (MRP) of nanotechnology/ies and analysis of the socio-economic, political and historical reality of nano. These ideas offer genuinely new insights into the kind of approach required for nanoethical reflection: they recover a sense of the present alongside the need to engage with the past, while avoiding speculation on the future. (shrink)

This paper contributes towards a lay ethics of nanotechnology through an analysis of talk from focus groups designed to examine how laypeople grapple with the meaning of a technology ‘in-the-making’. We describe the content of lay ethical concerns before suggesting that this content can be understood as being structured by five archetypal narratives which underpin talk. These we term: ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’; ‘kept in the dark’; ‘opening Pandora’s box’; ‘messing with nature’; and ‘be careful (...) what you wish for’. We further suggest that these narratives can be understood as sharing an emphasis on the ‘giftedness’ of life, and that together they are used to resist dominant technoscientific and Enlightenment narratives of control and mastery which are encapsulated by nanotechnology. (shrink)

Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States Sheila Jasanoff. Lippmann, Walter. The Phantom Public. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993 [1925]. Litfin, Karen . Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global ...

This article seeks to engage with contemporary debates on the social and ethical dimensions of genetically modified (GM) animals. Dominant policy ethical approaches and frameworks are criticized for failing radically to accommodate some of the most important dimensions of concern. Drawing on primary empirical data emphasizing existing embodied relationships to animals, the article analyses how people express ethical concern over GM animals, including their sense of the continuities and discontinuities between GM animals and those determined by conventional selective breeding practices. (...) The findings suggest that GM animals are likely to become an issue of public controversy, especially in the animal testing domain, due to the ways in which they symbolize and give voice to underlying tensions between ‘moral’and ‘instrumental’approaches to animals.The article concludes that people reject GM animals as ‘going against nature’, and that such concerns reflect wider unease about science, about technological modernity, and about hubris. (shrink)