The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies
The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies

Author: Steve Fuller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1135375321

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As the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has become more established, it has increasingly hidden its philosophical roots. While the trend is typical of disciplines striving for maturity, Steve Fuller, a leading figure in the field, argues that STS has much to lose if it abandons philosophy. In his characteristically provocative style, he offers the first sustained treatment of the philosophical foundations of STS and suggests fruitful avenues for further research. With stimulating discussions of the Science Wars, the Intelligent Design Theory controversy, and theorists such as Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies is required reading for students and scholars in STS and the philosophy of science.

An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

Author: Sergio Sismondo

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-08-17

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 144435888X

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An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, Second Edition reflects the latest advances in the field while continuing to provide students with a road map to the complex interdisciplinary terrain of science and technology studies. Distinctive in its attention to both the underlying philosophical and sociological aspects of science and technology Explores core topics such as realism and social construction, discourse and rhetoric, objectivity, and the public understanding of science Includes numerous empirical studies and illustrative examples to elucidate the topics discussed Now includes new material on political economies of scientific and technological knowledge, and democratizing technical decisions Other features of the new edition include improved readability, updated references, chapter reorganization, and more material on medicine and technology

The Role of Technology in Science: Philosophical Perspectives
The Role of Technology in Science: Philosophical Perspectives

Author: Sven Ove Hansson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-05

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 9401797625

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This edited volume explores the interplay between philosophies in a wide-ranging analysis of how technological applications in science inform our systems of thought. Beginning with a historical background, the volume moves on to explore a host of topics, such as the uses of technology in scientific observations and experiments, the salient relationship between technology and mechanistic notions in science and the ways in which today’s vast and increasing computing power helps scientists achieve results that were previously unattainable. Technology allows today’s researchers to gather, in a matter of hours, data that would previously have taken weeks or months to assemble. It also acts as a kind of metaphor bank, providing biologists in particular with analogies (the heart as a ‘pump’, the nervous system as a ‘computer network’) that have become common linguistic currency. This book also examines the fundamental epistemological distinctions between technology and science and assesses their continued relevance. Given the increasing amalgamation of the philosophies of science and technology, this fresh addition to the literature features pioneering work in a promising new field that will appeal both to philosophers and scientific historiographers.

Contributions to a Philosophy of Technology
Contributions to a Philosophy of Technology

Author: F. Rapp

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1974-10-31

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9789027704337

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The highly sophisticated techniques of modern engineering are normally conceived of in practical terms. Corresponding to the instrumental function of technology, they are designed to direct the forces of nature according to human purposes. Yet, as soon as the realm of mere skills is exceeded, the intended useful results can only be achieved through planned and preconceived action processes involving the deliberately considered application of well designed tools and devices. This is to say that in all complex cases theoretical reasoning becomes an indispensable means to accomplish the pragmatic technological aims. Hence the abstracting from the actual concrete function of technology opens the way to concentrate attention on the general conceptual framework involved. If this approach is adopted the relevant knowledge and the procedures applied clearly exhibit a logic of their own. This point of view leads to a methodological and even an epistemological analysis of the theoretical structure and the specific methods of procedure characteristic of modern technology. Investigations of this kind, that can be described as belonging to an ana lytical philosophy of technology, form the topic of this anthology. The type of research in question here is closely akin to that of the philosophy of science. But it is an astonishing fact that the commonly accepted and carefully investigated philosophy of science has not yet found its counterpart in an established philosophy of technology.

Psychological Studies of Science and Technology
Psychological Studies of Science and Technology

Author: Kieran C. O'Doherty

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-08-24

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 3030253082

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This book provides a significant contribution to scholarship on the psychology of science and the psychology of technology by showcasing a range of theory and research distinguished as psychological studies of science and technology. Science and technology are central to almost all domains of human activity, for which reason they are the focus of subdisciplines such as philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, sociology of knowledge, and history of science and technology. To date, psychology has been marginal in this space and limited to relatively narrow epistemological orientations. By explicitly embracing pluralism and an international approach, this book offers new perspectives and directions for psychological contributions. The book brings together leading theorists and researchers from around the world and spans scholarship across a variety of traditions that include theoretical psychology, critical psychology, feminist psychology and social constructionist approaches. Following a historical and conceptual introduction, the collection is divided into three sections: Scoping a New Psychology of Science and Technology, Applying Psychological Concepts to the Study of Science and Technology and Critical Perspectives on Psychology as a Science. The book will interest interdisciplinary scholars who work in the space of Science and Technology Studies and psychologists interested in the diverse human aspects of science and technology.

The Sociology-Philosophy Connection
The Sociology-Philosophy Connection

Author: Mario Bunge

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9781560004165

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Most social scientists and philosophers claim that sociology and philosophy are disjointed fields of inquiry. Some have wondered how to trace the precise boundary between them. Mario Bunge argues the two fields are so entangled with one another that no demarcation is possible or, indeed, desirable. In fact, sociological research has demonstrably philosophical presuppositions. In turn, some findings of sociology are bound to correct or enrich the philosophical theories that deal with the world, our knowledge of it, or the ways of acting upon it. While Bunge's thesis would hardly have shocked Mill, Marx, Durkheim, or Weber, it is alien to the current sociological mainstream and dominant philosophical schools. Bunge demonstrates that philosophical problematics arise in social science research. A fertile philosophy of social science unearths critical presuppositions, analyzes key concepts, refines effective research strategies, crafts coherent and realistic syntheses, and identifies important new problems. Bunge examines Marx's and Durkheim's thesis that social facts are as objective as physical facts; the so-called Thomas theorem that refutes the behaviorist thesis that social agents react to social stimuli rather than to the way we perceive them; and Merton's thesis on the ethos of basic science which shows that science and morality are intertwined. He then considers selected philosophical problems raised by contemporary social studies. In a concluding chapter, Bunge argues forcefully against tolerance of shabby work in academic social science and philosophy alike.

Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge
Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge

Author: Steve Fuller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-12-08

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1135618674

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In this second edition of Steve Fuller's original work Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies, James Collier joins Fuller in developing an updated and accessible version of Fuller's classic volume. The new edition shifts focus slightly to balance the discussions of theory and practice, and the writing style is oriented to advanced students. It addresses the contemporary problems of knowledge to develop the basis for a more publicly accountable science. The resources of social epistemology are deployed to provide a positive agenda of research, teaching, and political action designed to bring out the best in both the ancient discipline of rhetoric and the emerging field of science and technology studies (STS). The authors reclaim and integrate STS and rhetoric to explore the problems of knowledge as a social process--problems of increasing public interest that extend beyond traditional disciplinary resources. In so doing, the differences among disciplines must be questioned (the exercise of STS) and the disciplinary boundaries must be renegotiated (the exercise of rhetoric). This book innovatively integrates a sophisticated theoretical approach to the social processes of creating knowledge with a developing pedagogical apparatus. The thought questions at the end of each chapter, the postscript, and the appendix allow the reader to actively engage the text in order to discuss and apply its theoretical insights. Creating new standards for interdisciplinary scholarship and communication, the authors bring numerous disciplines into conversation in formulating a new kind of rhetoric geared toward greater democratic participation in the knowledge-making process. This volume is intended for students and scholars in rhetoric of science, science studies, philosophy, and communication, and will be of interest in English, sociology, and knowledge management arenas as well.

Technics and Praxis
Technics and Praxis

Author: D. Ihde

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 9400999003

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Depending on how one construes the kinship relations, technology has been either the stepchild of philosophy or its grandfather. In either case, technology has not been taken into the bosom of the family, but has had to wait for attention, care and feeding, while the more unclear elements - science, art, politics, ethics - were being nurtured (or cleaned up). Don Ihde puts technology in the middle of things, and develops a philosophy of technology that is at once distinctive, revealing and thought provoking. Typically, philosophy of technology has existed at, or beyond, the margins of the philosophy of science, and therefore the question of technology has come to be posed (when it is) either by historians of technology or by social critics. The philosophy of technology, as analysis and critique of the concepts, methodologies, implicit epistemologies and ontologies of technological praxis and thought, has remained underdeveloped. When philosophy does turn its attention to the insistent presence of technology, it inevitably casts the question in one or another of the dominant modes of philosophical interpretation and reconstruction. Thus, the logic of technological thinking and practice has been a subject of some systematic work (e. g. , in the Praxiology of Kotarbinski and Kotarbinska, among others). And the question of technology's relation to science has been posed in the framework of the nomological model of explanation in the sciences - e. g.

The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies
The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies

Author: Steve Fuller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1135375399

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As the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has become more established, it has increasingly hidden its philosophical roots. While the trend is typical of disciplines striving for maturity, Steve Fuller, a leading figure in the field, argues that STS has much to lose if it abandons philosophy. In his characteristically provocative style, he offers the first sustained treatment of the philosophical foundations of STS and suggests fruitful avenues for further research. With stimulating discussions of the Science Wars, the Intelligent Design Theory controversy, and theorists such as Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies is required reading for students and scholars in STS and the philosophy of science.