Sergio Sismondo - Science without myth: on constructions, reality, and social knowledge
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Science without myth: on constructions, reality, and social knowledge
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The book argues that there are a number of important and interesting ways in which scientific knowledge can be a social construction but that it often is knowledge of the material world; therefore, this book is an essay on mediationor the mediatory roles of scientists between nature and knowledge. By identifying and separating different senses of the construction metaphor, this book displays senses in which scientists construct knowledge, phenomena, and even worlds. It shows science as made up of thoroughly social processes and that those processes create representations of a pre-existing material world. Science without Myths argument provides a counter-balance to skeptical tendencies of constructivist studies of science and technology by showing that skepticism cannot cut so deeply as to deny the possibility of knowledge and representation.
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Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
1996 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sismondo, Sergio. Science without myth: on constructions, reality, and social knowledge / Sergio Sismondo. p. cm. (SUNY series in science, technology, and society) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-2733-1 (hc: acid-free). ISBN 0-7914-2734-X (pbk. : acid-free paper) 1. ScienceSocial aspects. 2. SciencePolitical aspects. 3. SciencePhilosophy. 4. Constructivism (Philosophy). 5. Realism. I. Title. II. Series. Q175.5.S56 1995 306.4'5dc2094-40526 CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
ix
1. Introduction
1
The primary goal of this book is to combine the best insights of constructivist and realist studies of science, showing that science is a social and political process while maintaining that it produces some knowledge about the material world.
2. The Grounds for Truth in Science: An Empiricist/Realist Dialogue
13
Some of science's successes are best explained as resulting from knowledge about the material world: we should believe the knowledge implicated in reliable methodology. The argument for this unites entity realism and theory realism. The position that results makes some important concessionsit is thus a deflationary realism: first, although we can make inferences to the approximate truth of some statements about unobservables, the realm for which we can do this is limited and its boundaries are not clear; and second, that truth is not the only, and might not even be the central, goal of science.
3. Epistemology by Other Means
27
If knowledge cannot be grounded with absolute certainty then rationalist explanations for the production of knowledge can be partial at best. Epistemology should become more empirical, and pay attention to the social and other processes by which what is taken to be knowledge is produced. Recent work in science and technology studies provides novel accounts of scientific practice and rationality and, through these accounts provides a counterbalance to the ideology of science often accepted by epistemologists. But while "science as social knowledge" conflicts with traditional rationalist ideas on the production of knowledge, looking at the social structures of natural science communities we can see how "science as social knowledge" contributes to an evolutionary picture of science.
Page vi
4. Exploring Metaphors of "Social Construction"
49
In science and technology studies the "social construction" metaphor has a number of distinct senses, many of which contribute to valuable insights on science. They provide the resources to see science as a set of institutions and social activities with multiple goals. Only one type of social constructivism, the neo-Kantian claim that representations construct their objects, is inconsistent with a deflationary realism. This neo-Kantianism has only weak arguments supporting it and is the least important of the different senses to the practice of science and technology studies.
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