Strong Constructivism — from a Sociologist's Point of View: A Personal Addendum to Sismondo's Paper

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 1993, Pages 555-563

  Cetina, Karin Knorr ^a  

^a BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84977239460     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0306312793023003005     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. Sergio Sismondo, Some Social Constructions', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August 1993), 515-53.
2. The claim that has been most criticized with respect to the role of social factors is the notion that social interests affect the making of knowledge. For a recent criticism, see T. Kuhn, The Trouble with the Historical Philosophy of Science', Robert and Maurine Rothschild Distinguished Lecture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Department of the History of Science, 1992).
3. To be sure, some philosophers have already made a start: see H. Putnam. The Meaning of Meaning', in Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 215-71. See also Joe Rouse, Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
4. These features are all addressed in the first laboratory studies cited by Sismondo (summarized in Chapter 2 of my 1981 book). See also K. Knorr-Cetina, The Microsocial Order: Towards a Reconception', in N.J. Fielding (ed.), Actions and Structures (London: Sage, 1988), 21-53, esp. 27-32.
5. For a philosopher who has noticed the work of situations but still reverts to explaining science in terms of individual mental events and their development, see Ron Giere, Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1988).
6. This point has been argued theoretically most forcefully by Woolgar with regard to the new sociology of science's neglect of its own circularities: see, for example, S. Woolgar and M. Ashmore, The Next Step: An Introduction to the Reflexive Project', in Woolgar (ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity (London: Sage, 1988), 1-11, esp. 7-9. For an example from the natural sciences, see K. Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: Forms of Reason in Science', History of Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1991), 105-22.
7. For a science that turns closed circuitries into a principle of knowing see experimental high-energy physics (K. Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic Cultures, Chapter 3, forthcoming 1994).
8. The offending assertions are summarized, for example, in my chapter Towards a Constructivist Interpretation of Science', in K. Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay (eds), Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science (London: Sage, 1982), 115-40, esp. 123-35.
9. The lesson to be learned form the mouse is reinforced today by similar conceptions which come out of the biology of cognition. For a sociological reformulation of concepts derived from it, see N. Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1990).