Showing papers on "Science studies published in 2003"

Theory and reality : an introduction to the philosophy of science

Abstract: What makes science different from other ways of investigating the world? In "Theory and Reality" Peter Godfrey-Smith uses debates - such as the problem of confirmation, the new riddle of induction, and the problem of scientific realism - as a way to introduce, in a completely accessible way, the main themes in the philosophy of science. Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, "Theory and Reality" starts by surveying the last hundred years of work in the field. It covers logical positivism; induction and confirmation; Karl Popper's theory of science; Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions"; the radical views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan and Paul Feyerabend; and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism and science studies. The book then looks in detail at some of the broader philosophical issues at stake, such as philosophical naturalism, scientific realism, theories of explanation in science, Bayesianism, and other modern theories of explanation in science. Throughout the text he points out connections between philosophical debates and wider discussions about science in recent decades, such as the infamous "science wars". Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, "Theory and Reality" combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates in language that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow.

An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

Abstract: Preface vii 1 The Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies 1 2 The Kuhnian Revolution 12 3 Questioning Functionalism in the Sociology of Science 23 4 Stratification and Discrimination 36 5 The Strong Programme and the Sociology of Knowledge 47 6 The Social Construction of Scientific and Technical Realities 57 7 Feminist Epistemologies of Science 72 8 Actor-Network Theory 81 9 Two Questions Concerning Technology 93 10 Studying Laboratories 106 11 Controversies 120 12 Standardization and Objectivity 136 13 Rhetoric and Discourse 148 14 The Unnaturalness of Science and Technology 157 15 The Public Understanding of Science 168 16 Expertise and Public Participation 180 17 Political Economies of Knowledge 189 References 205 Index 236

Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance

Abstract: The essay reviews the notion of “civic science” in global environmental governance and how it is articulated in international relations, science studies, democratic theory and sustainability science. Civic science is used interchangeably with participatory, citizen, stakeholder and democratic science, which are all catch words that signify various attempts to increase public participation in the production and use of scientific knowledge. Three rationales for civic science are identified: restoring public trust in science, re-orienting science towards coping with the complexity of environmental problems and installing democratic governance of science. A central proposition is that the promotion of civic science needs to be coupled with a theoretical understanding of its institutional, normative and epistemological challenges. The science-politics interface needs to be reframed to include the triangular interaction between scientific experts, policy-makers and citizens.

Seasick on the Third Wave? Subverting the Hegemony of Propositionalism: Response to Collins & Evans (2002)

Abstract: Harry Collins and Rob Evans (Collins & Evans, 2002) offer a typically forthright normative vision for the 'Third Wave' of science studies, after what they call the earlier waves of post-war rationalism, then the postKuhnian 'cultural revolution' from the 1970s. They propose to redefine the accepted qualifications for expert standing in the countless areas of decision-making in which scientific knowledge has held presumptive sway as exclusive (but relentlessly disputed and increasingly eroded) public authority. Collins & Evans (2002) start from the problem of public legitimacy that has been widely recognized to beset science in recent times (House of Lords, 2000; European Union, 2000). They argue that 'the problem of legitimacy' for science has been mistakenly replaced by 'the problem of extension', in which real distinctions between experts and publics are dissolved and 'technical decision-making rights' (as they call them) are thus extended indiscriminately. Their aim of redefining competences for 'technical decision-making' in the public sphere, so as to include practical experience-based expertise alongside 'certified science', would be more inclusive compared with existing boundaries, but more exclusive compared with the apparent assumptions (of infinite 'extension') of the participation in science 'movements'. They use the case studies of Cumbrian sheep farmers (Wynne, 1992) and HIV-AIDS activists (Epstein, 1996) to illustrate this argument. Significantly, and as issues I take up later, for them the public sphere involves an accumulation of completely unrelated 'decisions' about what they define as exclusively 'propositional' decision-questions, such as whether nuclear power, anti-misting kerosene or UK beef is safe,

Breaking the Waves in Science Studies: Comment on H.M. Collins and Robert Evans, `The Third Wave of Science Studies'

Abstract: The human mind finds threesomes reassuring. Perhaps it has to do with the lateral symmetry of our bodies: right, left, and center. Three, at any rate, is a favorite structuring principle in art and argument. Triptych and trilogy. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Wide pendulum swings modulating to a restful mid-point. To Harry Collins' credit, his threesomes have not always aimed for the comfort of the happy middle. In 1981, when he announced the three-stage 'empirical programme of relativism' (EPOR), Collins (1981) charted an ambitious research program for the then young field of science studies. The two initial stages were indeed formulated as thesis and antithesis: first, display the interpretive flexibility of experimental claims; then, show how interpretation solidifies and loses ambiguity, despite possibilities for endless debate. The program's third stage, however, was a call for expanding rather than limiting the analyst's field of vision, by relating the production of scientific knowledge to its wider social and political contexts. Among other things, this invitation to science studies scholars to step outside the self-appointed boundaries of science and technology opened the door to productive conversations between the sociology of scientific knowledge and neighboring social science fields, such as history, anthropology, and political science. In this 60-page discussion paper, written more than two decades later, Collins and his co-author Robert Evans (hereafter C&E) try once again to fit science studies within a three-fold schema (Collins & Evans, 2002). The 'stages' now have become 'waves', but the authors' object, as in Collins' earlier programmatic piece, is to position existing work within the first two waves and set the stage for a third one. Unlike the third stage of EPO,

The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America

Abstract: The Truth of Ecology is a wide-ranging, polemical appraisal of contemporary environmental thought Focusing on the new field of ecocriticism from a thoroughly interdisciplinary perspective, this book explores topics as diverse as the history of ecology in the United States; the distortions of popular environmental thought; the influence of Critical Theory on radical science studies and radical ecology; the need for greater theoretical sophistication in ecocriticism; the contradictions of contemporary American nature writing; and the possibilities for a less devotional, "wilder" approach to ecocritical and environmental thinking Taking his cues from Thoreau, Stevens, and Ammons, from Wittgenstein, Barthes and Eco, from Bruno Latour and Michel Serres, from the philosophers Rorty, Hacking, and Dennett, and from the biologists Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould, author Dana Phillips emphasizes an eclectic but pragmatic approach to a variety of topics His subject matter includes the doctrine of social construction; the question of what it means to be interdisciplinary; the disparity between scientific and literary versions of realism; the difficulty of resolving the tension between facts and values, or more broadly, between nature and culture; the American obsession with personal experience; and the intellectual challenges posed by natural history Those challenges range from the near-impossibility of defining ecological concepts with precision to the complications that arise when a birder tries to identify chickadees in poor light on a winter's afternoon in the Poconos

Constructing expertise: in a third wave of science studies?

Abstract: There is much with which to agree in the discussion paper of Collins & Evans (2002) on a 'normative theory of expertise' as the next step in science studies, but also much with which to disagree. While I have a problem with their various rhetorical strategies,' I strongly agree with Collins and Evans that a normative theory of expertise is an important challenge for science studies at the present time (2002: 237, 239) .2 However, I found their paper curiously disappointing in how they address that challenge. There are three items in their paper that qualify for a normative theory, or the beginnings of such a theory. First, Collins and Evans emphasize that there is expertise, often 'experience-based', which is not recognized by certification (2002: 238).3 They do not follow-up on how one can recognize such expertise, and recognize it at an early stage, perhaps as a competence. Although this may well be impossible, one might be able to improve the processes of recognition. Second, they emphasize that more 'extension', i.e. more participation by non-specialists, is not always better. This point deserves to be reiterated, and further articulation is important. Collins and Evans appear to suggest that the actual, 'optimal', extension is to be decided on a case-by-case basis. At least, that is the way they discuss their cases (2002: 261-65). Third, they emphasize that one can usefully start with esoteric sciences as a model, and with the experience of the sociologist studying such sciences as a heuristic. That this is indeed part of a normative theory is visible in phrases such as:

Distributed Cognition: Where the Cognitive and the Social Merge

Abstract: Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive science...

Grounding Knowledge: Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, and Place

Abstract: Mountains and freeways, oceans and apartment buildings, trees and automobiles: such things lend shape to mental activity, says Christopher J. Preston. Yet Western epistemology, since its origins, has neglected these material factors. Even postmodern perspectives on how we think and know continue to emphasize social and cultural factors over the physical environment. Grounding Knowledge claims that one of the unforeseen consequences of this anthropocentrism has been to ignore the epistemic argument for maintaining diverse natural environments. Grounding Knowledge supplies that argument. Preston first traces the separation of place and mind in Western epistemology. Drawing connections between skepticism and ungrounded knowledge, he then explores how a common insight in the epistemologies of both Kant and Quine sets the scene for more situated accounts of knowledge. After showing how science studies and cognitive science have both recently moved in this direction, Preston draws further evidence for his thesis from fields as far apart as evolutionary biology, anthropology, and religious studies. He asks what these ideas in contemporary epistemology and environmental philosophy mean for environmental policy, concluding that the grounding of knowledge strongly suggests epistemic reasons for the protection of a full range of physical environments in their natural condition. Grounding Knowledge comes at a time of increasing dialogue between the sciences and the humanities about our rootedness in all of our different "worlds." Preston hopes to persuade his readers that "it is not only in our biological but also in our cognitive interests to protect these roots."

Is That Politics

Abstract: What is the relevance of science studies for political science? We want to argue here that science studies’ tactic of turning transcendences into empirical questions can benefit the study of politics. By describing the empirical turn science studies have made in normative analyses, for example of “good experiments”, we will seek to extrapolate a new orientation for the study of contemporary politics. The limits of this extrapolation will also be addressed.

Introduction: Toward an Urban History of Science

Abstract: This essay calls for an urban history of science that unites the history of science and urban history. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it emphasizes the active role cities play in shaping both scientific practice and scientific knowledge. Furthermore, the essay argues that cities themselves have to be viewed-at least partially-as mediated by science. Four interconnections of science and the city are discussed: the relationship between scientific expertise and urban politics, science's role in the cultural representation of the city, the embedment of scientific activity in the social and material infrastructure of the city, and the interaction between science and urban everyday life.

Social Studies of Science and Technology: Looking Back, Ahead

Abstract: Preface: Yet Another Turn B. Joerges, H. Nowotny. 1. The Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook: A Personal Retrospective R. Whitley. I: STS and Society. 2. Sciences, Science Studies and their Publics: Speculating on Future Relations U. Felt. 3. Is That Politics? E. Gomart, M. Hajer. 4.Science and the Postmodern Shift in Contemporary Democracies Y. Ezrahi. II: STS and The Social Sciences. 5. History of Social Science: Understanding Modernity and Rethinking Social Studies of Science B. Wittrock. 6. The 'Triple Helix' and 'New Production of Knowledge' as Socio-Cognitive Fields T. Shinn. 7. The Conundrum of Consciousness: Changing Landscapes of Knowledge at the Turn of the Millennium S. Maasen. 8. In a Constitutional Moment: Science and Social Order at the Millennium S. Jasanoff. III: STS - Emergence of a Field. 9. Growth, Differentiation, Expansion and Change of Identity - The Future of Science P. Weingart. 10. Institutionalizing Science & Technology Studies in the Academy S. Hilgartner. 11. Prolepsis: Considerations for Histories of Science After 2000 M. Hagner, H.-J. Rheinberger. 12. Joy in Repetition Makes the Future Disappear: a Critical Assessment of the Present State of STS M. Guggenheim, H. Nowotny. 13. Reflections on the Millennium, Calendars, and the Gregorian Hegemony B. Joerges. List of Contributors. Biographical Notes. Author Index.

The inquiry paradox: why doing science doesn't necessarily change ideas about science

Abstract: A long standing goal of science education in the United States has been that students develop an understanding of the nature of science, of what scientific knowledge is like and how it is constructed. Despite this interest, students continue to leave secondary schools with naïve views of the nature of science. Current science education reforms advocate inquiry as a way for students to learn about the nature of science as well as scientific concepts. Inquiry engages students in their own efforts to construct scientific knowledge, and several efforts to use technology to support inquiry have been effective at helping students understand important scientific concepts and develop certain skills of scientific reasoning. Still, there is no evidence that doing inquiry in school develops students’ understanding of the nature of science. The reason for this is twofold. First, assessments of students’ ideas of the nature of science universally target professional science, rather than students’ own efforts to do science. Students’ views on the nature of their own inquiry may be “scientific,” but not be related to their views of professional science. Second, helping students to draw such relationships may depend upon an explicitly epistemic discourse in the classroom, centered on what students know and how they know it, and that connects their work to professional science. Technology can support such a discourse by helping students to generate artifacts from their inquiry structured to highlight epistemic issues. These epistemic tools should represent important epistemic forms of scientific knowledge that link to practices for making them. Most importantly, research on epistemological development must link students’ practices of inquiry to their expressed beliefs about professional science.

Little Book, Big Book: Before and After Little Science, Big Science: A Review Article, Part II

Abstract: Since its publication in 1963, Derek Price’s Little science, big science (LSBS) has achieved ‘citation classic’ status. Examination of the genesis of LSBS and the state of the discipline of the history of science in the UK and the USA in the late 1950s demonstrates that Price’s ideas were formulated during a pivotal period in the development of socio-historical studies of science. Price’s talent for innovation and synthesis at an unsettled but highly charged time, and his appreciation of the pioneering work in science studies of the crystallographer J.D. Bernal, are reflected in the uniquely profound and wide-ranging respects in which LSBS has contributed to the development of scientometric and sociological theory.

Images and Contexts: The Historiography of Science and Modernity in India

Abstract: This work attempts to situate the historiography of science in India within a social theory of science. Eight essays problematize the history of science in India and throw up questions dealing with issues such as the paradigm shift within science studies, the move away from a west-centric theory of science, and future trends and possibilities.

What's Wrong with American Regional Science? A View from Science Studies *, **

Abstract: Drawing upon archival material and primary texts, the paper argues that American regional science after early growth and success during the 1950s and 1960s waned because of an unwillingness to change its position in response to new circumstances. It was unwilling to entertain change because it believed it was a science with an unimpeachable method. In contrast, the paper argues that the early success of regional science had less to do with its scientific method than the local social and cultural context in which it was embedded. At first, regional science was able to forge tight connections to that local context, and consequently burgeoned. But as that context changed in the 1970s, American regional science failed to keep up, and instead continued to espouse what it thought were unchanging universal scientific nostrums. The result, though, was not growth and vibrancy, but a slow trajectory of decline and fall. The theoretical framework informing this critical history derives from science studies, and in particular the work of Bruno Latour. En utilisant du materiel des archives et des textes originaux, le raisonnement est presente que la science regionale americaine, apres avoir connu une croissance initiale et un succes certain au cours des annees 1950 et 1960, a perdu son elan a cause d'un manque de volonte pour modifier sa position par rapport aux nouvelles circonstances. Elle ne voulait pas contempler le changement parce qu'elle pensait qu'elle etait une science avec une methode sans faille. En contraste, dans cet article nous raisonnons que le succes initial de cette science regionale etait moins le resultat de sa methode scientifique que le resultat du contexte social e culturel local dans lequel elle fut enracinee. Au depart, la science regionale etait capable de batir des relations tres etroites a ce contexte local et par consequent elle a connu une floraison remarquable. Mais au fur et a mesure que ce contexte a change, la science regionale americaine n'a pas reussi a maintenir sa position, et, au contraire, a continue a s'allier ce qu'elle pensait etre les imperatifs scientifiques universels et constants. Le resultat, neanmoins, n'etait pas la croissance et une ambiance vibrant, mais plutot un trajectoire lent de declin et de demise. Le schema theorique qui a informe cette histoire critique decoule des etudes de la science, particulierement le travail de Bruno Latour. ********** What's Wrong with American Regional Science? A View from Science Studies My first academic conference, and as a first year graduate student, was at the North American Regional Science Association held at the Ambassador Hotel, Chicago, November 1978. It was exhilarating but disarming as well. For the first time, I saw what professors did in their off hours. There seemed such a gap between the graceful and purified abstractions of the regional scientists who spoke, their vocabulary couched in mathematical equations or serried rows of numbers or tidily drawn flow charts presented as a series of overheads, and the behaviour of some of them once they left the lectern. There was drunkenness, a fistfight between a disgruntled author and recalcitrant editor, bets and bravado at a singles bar, imbibing of illegal substances, and cursing and sexual innuendo. I was shocked, but it didn't stop me from joining in. Of course, I realise now from both becoming a professor and reading the science studies literature on which I will draw in this paper, that there is no disjuncture. Academic inquiry even of the most purified kind is thoroughly muddied by a wider social context, local cultural practices, and bodily acts and responses, and which can include even drunkenness, fistfights, and barroom bets and bravado. As Steven Shapin (1998: 23) puts it, "I have never seen a 'disembodied idea,' nor, I suspect, have those who say they study such things. What I and they have seen is embodied people portraying their disembodiment and that of the knowledge they produce. …

Re-visioning science education from a science studies and futures perspective

Abstract: It is heartening to note that while science education remains predominately conceptualised from normative positions, there is a small but important literature adopting more critical perspectives. Drawn from the oppositional discourses including science studies and ecofeminism, such critiques aim to reformulate science education with far-reaching implications for science curriculum. Given the centrality of science in the Western worldview and the future of the planet, a futures perspective is a critical omission from these critiques. Futures thinking can provide a novel framework for organising the critiques of science, and facilitate the development of principles to re-vision a more open science education.

Lorenz’s philosophical naturalism in the mirror of contemporary science studies

Abstract: Although major tenets of Lorenz’s hypothetical-realist evolutionary epistemology have not withstood close philosophical scrutiny, by and large his philosophical naturalism can still inspire us today. To prepare the ground for my argument I interpret some key aspects of the current debate about the significance of Lorenz’s scientific and philosophical achievements from the perspective of science studies, viz., the history, philosophy, and social studies of science. I move on to assess Lorenz’s peculiar brand of evolutionary naturalism in the light of the booming development of philosophical naturalism in the last three decades. Contemporary philosophical naturalism as I understand it may be defined in terms of four attitudes: (i) the articulation of philosophy in a way that is continuous with scientific method and explanation; (ii) anti-transcendence (Diesseitigkeit); (iii) an anti-transcendental stance that requires abandoning the ambition of finding epistemological foundations, and (iv) a deep appreciation of the bounded rationality of all cognizing systems, whether human, animal, or artificial. Lorenz’s views, in particular in “The innate forms of possible experience” (1943) and Behind the Mirror (1973/1977), provide a powerful antidote for a variety of unwarranted anti-naturalistic leanings that persist in epistemology and the philosophy of mind to this very day. Key words: Adaptationism, bounded rationality, context of justification, evolutionary epistemology, Konrad Lorenz, Immanuel Kant, philosophical naturalism, transcendence, transcendental arguments.

Reply to Giere

Abstract: In his “A New Program for Philosophy of Science?”, Ronald Giere expresses qualms regarding the critical and political projects I advocate for philosophy of science—that the critical project assumes an underdetermination absent from actual science, and the political project takes us outside the professional pursuit of philosophy of science. In reply I contend that the underdetermination the critical project assumes does occur in actual science, and I provide a variety of examples to support this. And I contend that the political project requires no more than what other academic fields even in science studies are already providing.

Thinking Like a Man? The Cultures of Science

Abstract: Culture includes science and science includes culture, but conflicts between the two traditions persist, often seen as clashes between interpretation and knowledge. One way of highlighting this false polarity has been to explore the gendered symbolism of science. Feminism has contributed to science studies and the critical interrogation of knowledge, aware that practical knowledge and scientific understanding have never been synonymous. Persisting notions of an underlying unity to scientific endeavour have often impeded rather than fostered the useful application of knowledge. This has been particularly evident in the recent rise of molecular biology, with its delusory dream of the total conquest of disease. It is equally prominent in evolutionary psychology, with its renewed attempts to depict the fundamental basis of sex differences. Wars over science have continued to intensify over the last decade, even as our knowledge of the political, economic and ideological significance of science funding and res...

The Progress of Science and Implications for Science Studies and for Science Policy

Abstract: Preamble and synopsis Can the progress1 of science be deliberately guided or accelerated? That “science policy” is a recognized specialty implies that the answer is, “Yes.” But science policy should stem from an understanding of how science works, how or why it has progressed in the past—in particular the recent past, the era of modern science. Yet there is little agreement over those matters among scholars in science studies (or science and technology studies, STS for short) or among the disciplines that STS seeks to integrate, mainly history of science, philosophy of science, sociology of science.2 To the extent that there is any broad consensus, it would be that:

History of Science and Philosophy of Science

Abstract: The four papers and the comment that make up the bulk of this issue of Perspectives on Science, originated in a session organized by Friedrich Steinle for a meeting of the History of Science Society in Denver in 2001. We were struck by the extent to which, in spite of their differences, each of the papers managed to surmount some of the obstacles that beset the delicate, and sometimes difacult, relationship between history of science and philosophy of science. The authors have reworked their papers to highlight the intimate interactions in their work between detailed history of science and some core issue(s) in philosophy of science. The papers deal with different historical episodes and the authors speak from distinctively divergent viewpoints, but each of them develops speciac ways of intertwining historical and philosophical work in ways that improve both the historical studies and the philosophical analysis. This is an accomplishment of no small importance. Attempts to bring historical and philosophical studies of science into close contact with one another have a relatively long history. During an important formative period for the philosophy of science in the nineteenth century, many authors, perhaps most notably William Whewell, sought to base general accounts of science on serious studies of its history (see The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History, 1840). Although the history and the philosophy of science have often proceeded in considerable independence of one another, ever since Whewell’s groundbreaking work there have been notable attempts to provide a historical footing for general philosophies of science. One need only think of Duhem or Mach or, since the 1960s, Hacking, Kuhn, Lakatos, Latour, and Laudan—and many more. Recently, however, mainstream history of science and mainstream philosophy of science have gone in different directions. History of science

Sciences, Science Studies and Their Publics: Speculating on Future Relations

Abstract: Moments of commemoration such as anniversaries or the beginning of a new century/millennium are often used as occasions to do both, look back and analyse past expectations in the light of present experiences as well as speculate about future challenges to be taken up. The heterogeneous ensemble of investigations which identify themselves or are identified as part of the research field ‘science and technology studies (STS)’,2 can surely look back upon a lively development throughout the last 30 years, having opened up areas of debate and introduced profound reflection on the mutual shaping processes between (techno)science and society. To varying degrees — largely depending on national contingencies and traditions, but also on the investment of individuals and networks — STS has managed to get institutionally established as a research and teaching domain and gained some visibility. Curricula allow for reproduction; regular international conferences3 highlight the issues at stake; publication networks bear witness to the large variety of academic production;4 academic societies try to give visibility and coherence to the rather spread out community; and finally the expertise available in the field is partly integrated on the policy level. So, everything’s at best?

Minding science: Constructivism and the discourse of inquiry.

Abstract: Cognitive Therapy and Research emerged as a journal during the cognitive revolution. The cognitive revolution was a major paradigm shift in psychology. My involvement in that revolution followed my earlier training in behaviorism. The strong emotional reactions of radical behaviorists to early cognitive inquiries contributed to my interest in how scientists do science and why belief systems are sometimes so resistant to change. Studies of science and scientists reflect these questions. This paper offers a broad-stroke sketch of psychology of science, with special emphasis on graduate school, academic politics and tenure, publication, passions and paradigms, and the current controversy popularly mislabeled the “science wars.” I conclude that the academy and science policies are in need of constructive reform, science studies are crucial to our future, and we would be wise to stop using war metaphors. Let us foster a developmental discourse of inquiry.

Habermas, Argumentation Theory, and Science Studies: Toward Interdisciplinary Cooperation

Abstract: This article examines two approaches to the analysis and critical assessment of scientific argumentation. The first approach employs the discourse theory that Jurgen Habermas has developed on the basis of his theory of communicative action and applied to the areas of politics and law. Using his analysis of law and democracy in his Between Facts and Norms (1996) as a kind of template, I sketch the main steps in a Habermasian discourse theory of science. Difficulties in his approach motivate my proposal of an alternative approach that starts not with a theory of communicative action but with some broad categories drawn from argumentation theory. Using these categories, one can survey the various conceptions of scientific argumentation that have already emerged in the multi-disciplinary field of science studies. The more flexible, open-ended theoretic categories put one in a better position to'develop cooperative interdisciplinary studies that can inform the critical assessment of scientific argumentation.

Der Vergleich als Brücke zwischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie

Abstract: Comparisons as a Bridge between History and Philosophy of Science. Both in history and philosophy of science, comparisons are looked upon with considerable skepticism. A widespread syndrome of casuitis, i.e., the tendency of historians of science to produce extremely narrow and local studies that do not present a case for any broader thesis of interest to philosophers, has widened the gulf between history and philosophy of science.This may be somewhat surprising to sociologists, philosophers, or general,legal and cultural historians, who have been using comparisons successfully for a long time–albeit not always without controversy. In the first part of this paper, I assess the status of comparisons in science studies, in order to explain why their systematic use is not nearly as natural as might elsewhere be expected. This critical section is followed by a very brief outline of the prerequisites for fruitful comparison as formulated by general and sociological historians in their detailed methodological discussions. To these are added some necessary conditions from the perspective of modern history of science. In the third part I present four examples of such systematic comparisons taken from my own research.

Geographies of international scientific exchange in their political context: the case of visiting scholars to Germany in the second half of the 20th century

Abstract: This paper examines the history and geography of international academic mobility to Germany in the second half of the 20th century by using the example of the Fellowship Programme of the German-based Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Drawing upon recent writings on international scientific relations and the geography of science, the essay explores how the number of visiting scientists and scholars as well as the related geographic and disciplinary patterns have developed over time, and how potential variations in numbers, regional patterns and disciplines are related to world politics, different national political agendas, socio-economic conditions and the international attractiveness of research in Germany. The focus is on a discussion of three interrelated developments in their political, economic and scientific contexts: Firstly, a growth in number and change in profile of applicants and Humboldt Fellows in the first four decades of sponsorship, followed by a decline in the number of applications and fellows since the end of the Cold War. Secondly, a shift in subjects from an emphasis on the humanities to a dominance of the natural sciences and engineering. Thirdly, a growing number of the researchers’ home countries and a shift in regional patterns of origin. Based on a particular focus on the development of scientific relations with Russia and East Central Europe, it is illustrated that international scientific interaction is strongly mediated by varying political, economic, cultural and scientific contexts in the home and the host country as well as by subject-related collaborative cultures, thus lacking an inherent international or global dimension. It is pointed out, however, that the relationship between international scientific exchange and politics is not a simple one. The essay concludes by discussing its findings in regard to the spatial dimension of scientific work and interaction.