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Science of Science and Reflexivity
01 Jan 2004-
TL;DR: Bourdieu's "Science of Science and Reflexivity" as mentioned in this paper argues that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit.
Abstract: Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died in 2002, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. "Science of Science and Reflexivity" will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology." In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in "Science of Science and Reflexivity" are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths; he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century; and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, "Science of Science and Reflexivity" is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology."
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the scientific field is made up of clusters of specializations which are shaped by interactions with each other, and the scientific habitus does not account for these mesolevel interactions.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu has claimed that his concept of the habitus resolves the objectivism/constructivism debate in the sociology of science While institutional norms require that scientists maintain a disinterested attitude, studies have revealed that scientists often fail to live up to the normative standard of disinterestedness, sometimes becoming highly tendentious to promote their own work Bourdieu resolves the interested/disinterested paradox by claiming that scientists promote their own personal interests through objective science This is supposed to be the consequence of the scientific habitus, which ensures that the biases of the scientific field remain invisible to scientists who operate within it The concept of the habitus is central to Bourdieu’s theory of science However, it has suffered from two major shortcomings: 1) the scientific field is made up of clusters of specializations which are shaped by interactions with each other, and the habitus does not account for these mesolevel interactions; 2) it can only account for reproduction of the scientific field and therefore ignores the mechanisms which produce change I argue that Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge may be employed to better understand how the properties of scientific specialties both reproduce interested and disinterested behavior among scientists and facilitate change in particular specialty areas Key words: Pierre Bourdieu; Karl Mannheim; Habitus; Utopia; Field Theory; Specialization; Constructivism; Objectivism; Scientific Change
3 citations
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The application of fuzzy set theory to concept formation and operationalization provides the opportunity of looking at concepts as complex constructs made up of attributes logically interconnected one with the other and, second, of measuring them accordingly.
Abstract: The quantity-quality debate in social sciences also concerns concept formation and operationalization. The first approach has strong naturalist assumptions, while the second one focuses on the historical specificity of concepts. The solution to overcome this divide would be finding a path which balances the two perspectives. In this article we argue that fuzzy set theory can be a helpful tool for concept formation and operationalization. The application of fuzzy set theory to concept formation and operationalization provides, first, the opportunity of looking at concepts as complex constructs made up of attributes logically interconnected one with the other and, second, of measuring them accordingly. Thus, after presenting our general argument, we show a theoretical and an empirical application of how to use fuzzy sets in concept formation and operationalization.
3 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Fowler et al. as mentioned in this paper studied the newspaper obituaries of academics and argued that many of them signal the dangers to intellectual autonomy within current university structures, pointing out that these are fields whose actors have relatively privileged social origins but also troubles, springing either from wider geopolitical clashes of power or from the field itself.
Abstract: My concern in this chapter is to start an exploratory analysis of the newspaper obituaries of academics. The ways of seeing such documents of life are many and varied. My own formative approach to this aspect of the media was indebted in part to John Eldridge, particularly for his sensitive understanding of the power-soaked nature of mass communications. But in dissecting obituaries I argue that we need other theoretical resources as well. Here I have drawn particularly on Halbwachs as the theorist of social memory and Bourdieu as the theorist of distinction and canon formation, reinforcing the approach taken in my earlier book on obituaries (Fowler 2007). Further, to address academics’ obituaries I argue that we need to understand Bourdieu’s Homo Academicus and The State Nobility as responses to Kant and Mannheim. This theoretical paving of the way is then followed by a content analysis of contemporary academics’ obituaries, highlighting the unusual character of these obituaries as an unreciprocated gift exchange. Under Bourdieu’s auspices, as it were, we note that these are fields whose actors have relatively privileged social origins but also troubles, springing either from the wider geopolitical clashes of power or from the field itself. I conclude by noting that many of these obituaries signal the dangers to intellectual autonomy within current university structures.
3 citations
20 Nov 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the recent military turn to reflexivity in relation to current reflexive commitments in critical studies of the military and conclude that "with reflexivity, military organizations have begun...
Abstract: This article analyses the recent military ‘turn to reflexivity’ in relation to current reflexive commitments in critical studies of the military. With reflexivity, military organizations have begun...
3 citations