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Sociology of scientific knowledge

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The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Practioners include Gaston Bachelard, David Bloor , Michel Callon, Paul Feyerabend, Elihu M. Gerson, Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour, John Law, Karl Popper, Susan Leigh Star, Anslem Strauss, Lucy Suchman, etc. whose work inspired the development of the Scientific Community Metaphor of Bill Kornfeld and Carl Hewitt. These thinkers (sociologists, philosophers of science, historians of science, anthropologists and computer scientists) have engaged in controversy concerning the role that social factors play in scientific development relative to rational, empirical, etc. factors.

Programmes and schools

David Bloor has contrasted the so-called weak programme (or 'program' — either spelling is used) which merely gives social explanations for erroneous beliefs, with what he called the strong programme, which considers sociological factors as influencing all beliefs.

The weak programme is more of a description of an approach than an organised movement. The term is applied to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science who merely cite sociological factors as being responsible for those beliefs that went wrong. Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, and (in some moods) Thomas Kuhn might be said to adhere to it.

The strong programme is particularly associated with the work of two groups: the Edinburgh School (David Bloor and his colleagues of the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh), and the Bath School (Harry Collins and others formerly from the Science Studies Unit at the University of Bath). Bruno Latour is also sometimes considered to be part of this movement. In addition discourse analysis (associated with Michael Mulkay at the University of York) and reflexivity (associated with Malcolm Ashmore at Loughborough University) are often taken to be major strands of the programme. The strong programme is sometimes labeled as social constructivist, especially due to the works of authors such as Latour, but Bloor in his article 'Anti-Latour' claims that even the strong programme is not necessarily committed to a form of Anti-realism, responding that in his view the non-social nature, too, plays a central role in belief formation.

Sokal affair

Sociology of scientific knowledge became controversial in the 1990s after the publication of a hoax paper by Alan Sokal in the journal Social Text, under the title Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. The ensuing debate (the Sokal affair) led to SSK thinkers being accused of relativism.

See also

Some classic sources for SSK:

  • Collins, H.M. (1975) The seven sexes: A study in the sociology of a phenomenon, or the replication of experiments in physics, Sociology, 9, 205-24.
  • Collins, H.M. (1985). Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice. London: Sage.
  • Edwards, D., Ashmore, M. & Potter, J. (1995). Death and furniture: The rhetoric, politics, and theology of bottom line arguments against relativism. History of the Human Sciences, 8, 25-49.
  • Gilbert, G. N. & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora’s box: A sociological analysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. 2nd Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Latour, B. (1987). Science in action : how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Pickering, A. (1984) Constructing Quarks: A sociological history of particle physics. Chicago; University of Chicago Press.
  • Shapin, S. & Schaffer, S. (1985). Leviathan and the air-pump. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

For a recent sourcebook see:

  • Jasanoff, S. Markle, G. Pinch T. & Petersen, J. (Eds)(2002), Handbook of science, technology and society, Rev Ed.. London: Sage.
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