Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside The Open Society and Its Enemies as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

In this book Bruno Latour brings together these different approaches to provide a lively and challenging analysis of science, demonstrating how social context..

This lucidly written book examines the social and political significance of the natural sciences through a detailed and original account of science as an interpretive social practice.

My Representing and Intervening (1983) concludes with what it calls an experimental argument for scientific realism about entities. The argument is evidently inapplicable to extragalactic astrophysics, but leaves open the possibility that there might be other grounds for scientific realism in that domain. Here I argue for antirealism in astrophysics, although not for any particular kind of antirealism. The argument is conducted by a detailed examination of some current research. It parallels the last chapter of (1983). Both represent the methodological (...) opinion that abstract or semantic realism/antirealism debates are empty, and typically lead to confused or wrong conclusions because they pay so little attention to the details of a science. (shrink)

"-Barbara Ehrenreich, Mother Jones "This book represents the expression of a particular feminist perspective made all the more compelling by Keller's evident commitment to and understanding of science.

This paper surveys a decade of philosophical discussion of laboratory science, and concludes with a bibliography. Among its topics are: (1) The historical emergence of distinct styles of experimental reasoning and practice; the relation of this to constructionalist theses. (2) The extension of Duhem's thesis to instruments and apparatus; not only are theory and observation malleable resources, but also the materiel with which one works. (3) The demarcation of science not by method or content, but by product; the creation of (...) phenomena. (4) The disunity of science; science conceived of as a motley of autonomous activities, not as hierarchy. (5) The need to rethink the idea of experiment as intervention; to replace the model of experimenter as master of nature by that of investigator as collaborator. (shrink)

I present five theses to characterize and argue for "Instrumental Realism," a realism wedded to what we do with instruments, and not what our theories say: The Independence Thesis: Questions about realism are independent of questions about meaning. The Intervening Thesis: Our ability to produce consistent effects with our instruments provides one guarantee that we are engaged with the real world. The Historical Thesis: If the descriptions of what we know and do are of something real, then it will be (...) possible to trace a history from earlier antiquated names and actions to current usages. The Instruments-Do-Not-Always-Work-Right Thesis: Since instruments do not always work right, a successful instrumental intervention cannot be a social construct. The Tinkering Thesis: Since instruments are created by tinkering, we should not take any claim that generalizes away from our instrumental practice realistically. (shrink)