The Cambridge history of science: v.7: The modern social sciences

Scientific or organizational knowledge creation has been addressed from different perspectives along the history of science and, in particular, of social sciences. The process is guided by the set of values, beliefs and norms shared by the members of the community to which the creator of this knowledge belongs, that is, it is guided by the adopted paradigm (Lincoln & Guba, 2000). The adopted paradigm determines how the nature of the studied reality is understood, the criteria that will be used to assess the validity of the created knowledge, and the construction and selection of methods, techniques and tools to structure and support the creation of knowledge. This set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that characterize the paradigm one implicitly or explicitly uses to make sense of the surrounding reality is the cultural root of the intellectual enterprises. Those assumptions constrain the accomplishment of activities such as construction of theories, definition of inquiry strategies, interpretation of perceived phenomena, and dissemination of knowledge (Schwandt, 2000).

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Fallible or inerrant? A belated review of the ‘constructivist's bible’ Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science. Cambridge History of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv+236. ISBN 0-521-44913-8. £15.95 (paperback).

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087403005338 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 93-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

M. D. Eddy

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

History Of Science ◽

Cambridge University ◽

Natural Knowledge ◽

The Social ◽

Science Wars ◽

History Of ◽

Unique Approach ◽

Canonical Text

When Jan Golinski's Making Natural Knowledge was published in 1998 it was generally applauded for its ecumenical stance between the empirical ‘art’ of historians and the theoretical focus of the social sciences. Indeed, such a middling position was a unique approach to be taken in wake of the ‘science wars’ and this, in combination with the book's clear organization and (for the most part) forthright prose, quickly earned it a place upon HPS, STS and SSK postgraduate reading lists. Now, five years since its first edition was published (hardback, 1998), the work has become a standard introduction to historically minded scholars interested in the constructivist programme. In fact, it has been called the ‘constructivist's bible’ in many a conference corridor. Since the book has attained such a status (and since it has not been reviewed in the BJHS), it is perhaps worth reflecting on whether or not such canonical text (to use a biblical analogy) is fallible or inerrant – especially in relation to its content and pedagogical efficacy.

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From political economy to sociology: Francis Galton and the social-scientific origins of eugenics

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087410001524 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 44 (3) ◽

pp. 343-369 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

CHRIS RENWICK

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Twentieth Century ◽

Political Economy ◽

History Of Science ◽

Research Programme ◽

Biological Science ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Francis Galton ◽

Social Scientific

AbstractHaving coined the word ‘eugenics’ and inspired leading biologists and statisticians of the early twentieth century, Francis Galton is often studied for his contributions to modern statistical biology. However, whilst documenting this part of his work, historians have frequently neglected crucial aspects of what motivated Galton to establish his eugenics research programme. Arguing that his work was shaped more by social than by biological science, this paper addresses these oversights by tracing the development of Galton's programme, from its roots in a debate about political economy to his appeals for it to be taken up by sociologists. In so doing, the paper not only returns Galton's ideas to their original context but also provides a reason to reflect on the place of the social sciences in history-of-science scholarship.

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Constructionist Perspective of Organizational Data Mining

Data Warehousing and Mining ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-951-9.ch137 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 2296-2301

Author(s):

Isabel Ramos ◽

João Álvaro Carvalho

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Data Mining ◽

History Of Science ◽

Knowledge Creation ◽

Organizational Knowledge ◽

Cultural Root ◽

Organizational Knowledge Creation ◽

History Of ◽

Definition Of ◽

Selection Of

Scientific or organizational knowledge creation has been addressed from different perspectives along the history of science and, in particular, of social sciences. The process is guided by the set of values, beliefs and norms shared by the members of the community to which the creator of this knowledge belongs, that is, it is guided by the adopted paradigm (Lincoln & Guba, 2000). The adopted paradigm determines how the nature of the studied reality is understood, the criteria that will be used to assess the validity of the created knowledge, and the construction and selection of methods, techniques and tools to structure and support the creation of knowledge. This set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that characterize the paradigm one implicitly or explicitly uses to make sense of the surrounding reality is the cultural root of the intellectual enterprises. Those assumptions constrain the accomplishment of activities such as construction of theories, definition of inquiry strategies, interpretation of perceived phenomena, and dissemination of knowledge (Schwandt, 2000).

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Local Ideas and Global Networks

Provincializing Global History ◽

10.12987/yale/9780300237160.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 52-84

Author(s):

James Livesey

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Intellectual History ◽

History Of Science ◽

Science Studies ◽

Sociology Of Science ◽

Global Networks ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

University Science ◽

Scientific Ideas

This chapter talks about the aftermath of the collapse in authority of positivist models where scholars became highly sensitized to the implication of strategies of inquiry and interpretation with strategies of control. Even in areas of the social sciences that did not commit to discourse as a master category, the suspicion that the claim to a form of truth, or knowledge, entirely distinct from power, was in fact nothing more than a mystification that had explosive consequences. The history of science in its many forms has been transformed. In turn, the challenge to an easy universalism in the sciences has been foundational to the emergence of global intellectual history. The philosophical and methodological challenges of even the most mediated and subtle kinds of constructivism create dual fundamentalist temptations, toward a self-refuting reductivism or an overstated idealism. The “strong program,” associated with the Edinburgh University Science Studies Unit, pursued a wholehearted sociology of science and argued that the truth-value of particular scientific ideas was itself social in origin, thus collapsing the discovery/validation dichotomy.

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Knowledge of childhood: materiality, text, and the history of science – an interdisciplinary round table discussion

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s000708741700005x ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 111-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

FELIX RIETMANN ◽

MAREIKE SCHILDMANN ◽

CAROLINE ARNI ◽

DANIEL THOMAS COOK ◽

DAVIDE GIURIATO ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

African American ◽

Racial Identity ◽

History Of Science ◽

Round Table ◽

Round Table Discussion ◽

Table Discussion ◽

History Of ◽

Modern Knowledge ◽

Forms Of Knowledge

AbstractThis round table discussion takes the diversity of discourse and practice shaping modern knowledge about childhood as an opportunity to engage with recent historiographical approaches in the history of science. It draws attention to symmetries and references among scientific, material, literary and artistic cultures and their respective forms of knowledge. The five participating scholars come from various fields in the humanities and social sciences and allude to historiographical and methodological questions through a range of examples. Topics include the emergence of children's rooms in US consumer magazines, research on the unborn in nineteenth-century sciences of development, the framing of autism in nascent child psychiatry, German literary discourses about the child's initiation into writing, and the sociopolitics of racial identity in the photographic depiction of African American infant corpses in the early twentieth century. Throughout the course of the paper, childhood emerges as a topic particularly amenable to interdisciplinary perspectives that take the history of science as part of a broader history of knowledge.

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“Life Is a Verb”: Inflections of Artificial Life in Cultural Context

Artificial Life ◽

10.1162/artl.2007.13.2.189 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 189-201 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stefan Helmreich

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

History Of Science ◽

Literary Theory ◽

Artificial Life ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Art Criticism ◽

Recent Literature ◽

Natural Sciences ◽

History Of ◽

Verb Inflections

This review essay surveys recent literature in the history of science, literary theory, anthropology, and art criticism dedicated to exploring how the artificial life enterprise has been inflected by—and might also reshape—existing social, historical, cognitive, and cultural frames of thought and action. The piece works through various possible interpretations of Kevin Kelly's phrase “life is a verb,” in order to track recent shifts in cultural studies of artificial life from an aesthetic of critique to an aesthetic of conversation, discerning in the process different styles of translating between the concerns of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and sciences of the artificial.

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