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Social Study of Science

Steve Woolgar, Science: The Very Idea. New York: Tavistock Publications, 1988.

The issue is in the form of a question: what is science? What makes it different from other knowledge systems? The author offers a social study of science (SSS), an approach that holds that science cannot be differentiated from non-science by decision rules: "Scientific knowledge does not arise from the application of pre-existing decision rules to particular hypotheses or generalizations." (17) The historical response to the initial question sees science organized into three broad phases--the amateur, the academic, and the professional. Since 1940, science has become more professional, but this does not say what science is.

What is classified as science may depend on the context in which the question is raised. Nominalism suggests that features proposed as characteristics of science derive from definitional practices of those making the suggestions. The essentialist approach sees science as constantly changing and as complex. The nominalist approach sees the quest as futile.

The sociology of knowledge has neglected science. Variations in knowledge under this approach are associated with differences in class background, religious affiliation, social context, and so on. The social study of science has had to contend with a separate tradition within sociology, the sociology of science, and has adopted the essentialist position. Woolgar says that the current conceptions of science can act as a springboard and impose restraints for an understanding of science.

Woolgar approaches the issue from the standpoint of methodology. Discussions about science face a fundamental dualism between representation and object. The problem of representation raises the issue of how we can be sure that the representation is a true reflection of the object, a problem applicable to all sciences. Woolgar discusses methodological horrors, or the ways in which...

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Social Study of Science. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:14, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1700306.html