Abstract

This dissertation initiates a discussion among three of the strongest approaches within science and technology studies today: realist philosophy, constructivist sociology, and feminist critiques. The aim is to develop a coherent perspective incorporating valuable aspects of these apparently incompatible approaches, by formulating a philosophically realist position that can serve as a foundation for political and social analyses of science. ;Through a close study of recent social studies and feminist critiques of science, it is argued that a version of scientific realism--claiming only that scientists do sometimes find out about a pre-existing material world--can provide a better account of science than can strong constructivist and postmodernist alternatives. And from the point of view of the political critic of science, such a position is also preferable on methodological and political grounds. Yet while constructivism in science and technology studies may be untenable in its strongest forms, it offers correct and important insights about science as an essentially social process, and about the relationship between scientific knowledge and the natural and social worlds. The dissertation examines such constructivist insights features that normally lead the political critic and the sociologist away from realism, such as contingency, pluralisms of scientific accounts, use of ideologically-laden metaphors, and the social character of scientific knowledge--to show how they can be fruitfully incorporated into a realist account, and should be so incorporated