Reflexivity, or the systematic attempt to include the spokesperson in accounts of the social world, is a magnetic signature and inherent riddle of all modern thinking about knowledge and science. Turning the narrative back upon the narrator may sharpen our critical wits about the `inescapable perspectivity' of human knowledge; but self-referential accounts may also trigger endless loops of meta-theorizing and lose track of the object itself. Negotiating the twin pitfalls of spiralling meta-reflexivity and flat naturalistic accounts, I argue for a (...) reflexive `one step up', which adds one storey to the story. It explores, through critical discussions of the work of Harding and Bourdieu, how reflexivity may promiscuously combine with conflicting objectivist and constructivist epistemologies, and how reflexive accounts invariably appear to run in a circle. This performative circularity, it is argued, does not invalidate the reflexive effort but defines its major strength. Constitutive circularity graces both world-accounts and self-accounts with a radical uncertainty and incompleteness; which implies, among other things, that we must shift part of the burden of reflexive work to our friends, or rather: to our best enemies. (shrink)

_The Intellectual as Stranger_ explores the historical association between images of the intellectual and those of the stranger, or the outsider to society. Using detailed case-studies, Pels examines the ambiguous strangerhood of political intellectuals such as Marx, Durkheim, Sorel, Freyer and Hendrik de Man.

In the days of global warming and BSE, science is increasingly a public issue. This book provides a theoretical framework which allows us to understand why and how scientists address the general public. The author develops the argument that turning to the public is not simply a response to inaccurate reporting by journalists or to public curiosity, nor a wish to gain recognition and additional funding. Rather, it is a tactic to which the scientific community are pushed by certain "internal" (...) crisis situations. Bucchi examines three cases of scientists turning to the public: the cold fusion case, the COBE/Big Bang issue and Louis Pasteur's public demonstration of the anthrax vaccine, a historical case of "public science." Finally, Bucchi presents his unique model of communications between science and the public, carried out through the media. This is a thoughtful and wide-ranging treatment of complex contemporary issues, touching upon the history and sociology of science, communication and media studies. Bucchi's theories on scientific communication in the media are a valuable contribution to the current debate on this subject. (shrink)

Replete with madwomen, murderers, musicians, and mystics, "Lonely Woman" dramatically interweaves the lives of five women. It remains Takako Takahashi's most sustained and multifaceted fictional realization of her concept of "loneliness.".

A summation of the work of one of the most influential and provocative interpreters of science, it aims at saving what is good and valuable in modernity and ...

This authoritative and revealing book provides the first sociological examination of postmodernism. Lash examines the differences between modernism and postmodernism, providing a clear explanation of why postmodernism is important.

In this book the author moves beyond the time of clocks and calendars in order to study time as embedded in social interactions, structures, practices and knowledge, in artefacts, in the body, and in the environment. Adam suggests ways not merely to deconstruct but to reconstruct both common-sense and social science understanding.

This work by Pierre Bourdieu develops the anthropological theory which has formed the basis of his scientific research. It discusses the problems posed by "structuralist" philosophers in order to solve or dissolve them.

Why is science so credible? Usual answers center on scientists' objective methods or their powerful instruments. In his new book, Thomas Gieryn argues that a better explanation for the cultural authority of science lies downstream, when scientific claims leave laboratories and enter courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms. On such occasions, we use "maps" to decide who to believe—cultural maps demarcating "science" from pseudoscience, ideology, faith, or nonsense. Gieryn looks at episodes of boundary-work: Was phrenology good science? How about cold fusion? (...) Is social science really scientific? Is organic farming? After centuries of disputes like these, Gieryn finds no stable criteria that absolutely distinguish science from non-science. Science remains a pliable cultural space, flexibly reshaped to claim credibility for some beliefs while denying it to others. In a timely epilogue, Gieryn finds this same controversy at the heart of the raging "science wars.". (shrink)

Synthesizing forty years' work by France's leading sociologist, this book exemplifies Bourdieu's unique ability to link sociological theory, historical information, and philosophical thought. It makes explicit the presuppositions of a state of 'scholasticism', a certain leisure liberated from the urgencies of the world. Philosophers have brought these presuppositions into the order of discourse, more to legitimate than analyze them, and this is the primary systematic, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic error that Bourdieu subjects to methodological critique. Pascalian because he, too, was (...) concerned with symbolic power, he refused the temptation of foundationalist thinking, attended to 'ordinary people', and was determined to seek the reason for seemingly illogical behavior rather than simply condemning it. Bourdieu charts a negative philosophy, whose intellectual debt to such other 'heretical' philosophers as Wittgenstein, Austin, Dewey, and Peirce, renews traditional questioning of concepts of violence, power, time, history, the universal, and the purpose and direction of existence. (shrink)

It is in the interest of the totalitarian state that subjects not think for themselves, much less confer about their thinking. Writing under the hostile watch of the Prussian censorship, Immanuel Kant dared to argue the need for open argument, in the university if nowhere else. In this heroic criticism of repression, first published in 1798, he anticipated the crises that endanger the free expression of ideas in the name of national policy. Composed of three sections written at different times, (...) The Conflict of the Faculties dwells on the eternal combat between the "lower" faculty of philosophy, which is answerable only to individual reason, and the faculties of theology, law, and medicine, which get "higher" precedence in the world of affairs and whose teachings and practices are of interest to the government. Kant makes clear, for example, the close alliance between the theological faculty and the government that sanctions its teachings and can resort to force and censorship. All the more vital and precious, then, the faculty of philosophy, which encourages independent thought before action. The first section, "The Conflict of the Philosophy Faculty with the Theology Faculty," is essentially a vindication of the right of the philosophical faculty to freedom of expression. In the other sections the philosopher takes a long and penetrating look at medicine and law, the one preserving the physical "temple" and the other regulating its actions. (shrink)

A comprehensive overview of postmodernization and social change, written for students of social theory, cultural studies and urban and political sociology.

Analysis of art, literature and aesthetics.

The Intellectual as Stranger explores the historical association between images of the intellectual and those of the stranger, or the outsider to society. Using detailed case-studies, Pels examines the ambiguous strangerhood of political intellectuals such as Marx, Durkheim, Sorel, Freyer and Hendrik de Man.

"-Barbara Ehrenreich, Mother Jones "This book represents the expression of a particular feminist perspective made all the more compelling by Keller's evident commitment to and understanding of science.

The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science (...) by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways. (shrink)