Science After The Practice Turn In The Philosophy History And Social Studies Of Science

In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn.

In scholarly debates, as well as in everyday parlance, we tend to pull science and technology apart: science gives us theory, and technology applies it. In practice, however, science and technologies are highly intertwined. In Techno-Scientific Practices: An Informational Approach, Federica Russo looks at the practice of science and elucidates the role of technologies and instruments in the process of knowledge production. In this exercise, it becomes evident that technologies cannot be analyzed on their own, but always in relation to epistemic agents. Thus, Techno-Scientific Practices emphasizes the importance of analyzing the process of knowledge production in techno-scientific contexts, in which there is a triad of relations to look at: us, the instruments, and the world. The book thus builds bridges between the philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies in an unprecedent way.

Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (iHPS) is commonly understood as the study of science from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. Yet, since its gradual formation as a research field, the question of how to suitably integrate both perspectives remains open. This volume presents cutting edge research from junior iHPS scholars, and in doing so provides a snapshot of current developments within the field, explores the connection between iHPS and other academic disciplines, and demonstrates some of the topics that are attracting the attention of scholars who will help define the future of iHPS.

This volume explores how the scientific method enters and determines the dominant methodologies of various modern academic disciplines. It highlights the ways in which practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds –– the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences –– engage with the scientific method in their own disciplines. The book maps the discourse (within each of the disciplines) that critiques the scientific method, from different social locations, in order to argue for more complex and nuanced approaches in methodology. It also investigates the connections between the method and the structures of power and domination which exist within these disciplines. In the process, it offers a new way of thinking about the philosophy of the scientific method. Part of the Science and Technology Studies series, this volume is the first of its kind in the South Asian context to debate scientific methods and address questions by scholars based in the global south. It will be useful to students and practitioners of science, humanities, social sciences, philosophy of science, and philosophy of social science. Research scholars from these disciplines, especially those engaging in interdisciplinary research, will also benefit from this volume.

Could all or part of our taken-as-established scientific conclusions, theories, experimental data, ontological commitments, and so forth have been significantly different? Science as It Could Have Been focuses on a crucial issue that contemporary science studies have often neglected: the issue of contingency within science. It considers a number of case studies, past and present, from a wide range of scientific disciplines—physics, biology, geology, mathematics, and psychology—to explore whether components of human science are inevitable, or if we could have developed an alternative successful science based on essentially different notions, conceptions, and results. Bringing together a group of distinguished contributors in philosophy, sociology, and history of science, this edited volume offers a comprehensive analysis of the contingency/inevitability problem and a lively and up-to-date portrait of current debates in science studies.

Science is highly dependent on technologies to observe scientific objects. For example, astronomers need telescopes to observe planetary movements, and cognitive neuroscience depends on brain imaging technologies to investigate human cognition. But how do such technologies shape scientific practice, and how do new scientific objects come into being when new technologies are used in science? In How Scientific Instruments Speak, Bas de Boer develops a philosophical account of how technologies shape the reality that scientists study, arguing that we should understand scientific instruments as mediating technologies. Rather than mute tools serving pre-existing human goals, scientific instruments play an active role in shaping scientific work. De Boer uses this account to discuss how brain imaging and stimulation technologies mediate the way in which cognitive neuroscientists investigate human cognitive functions. The development of cognitive neuroscience runs parallel with the development of advanced brain imaging technologies, drawing a lot of public attention—sometimes called “neurohype”—because of its alleged capacity to demystify the human mind. By analyzing how the objects that cognitive neuroscientists study are mediated by brain imaging technologies, de Boer explicates the processes by which human cognition is investigated.

This monograph presents a unitary account of Dewey’s philosophy of science and demonstrates the relevance for contemporary debates. The book is written from a theoretical angle and explains Dewey's via on Experience, Language, Inquiry, Construction and Realism. Via taking this route the book addresses key philosophical problems - such as the nature of language, the idea of experience, the notion of logical constructivism, the criticism of representationalism and the nature of scientific practices. John Dewey (1859-1952) is one of the most representative philosophers of the United States. He is well known for his work in education, psychology and social reform and one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism. His Philosophy of Science underwent a period of almost total unpopularity and neglect. In recent times, however, as a consequence of the strong pragmatist renaissance we are now witnessing, Dewey’s philosophy of science has attracted new attention. This book presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of Dewey's philosophy of science and will be of interest to scholars working in nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy of science and on the relationship between Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism.

This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.