16 chapters, each addressing a theoretical tradition, methodological approach, or thematic issue
• recurring issues addressed in the cross-referenced text boxes
chapters introduced with what the following paragraphs are to debunk
origins of STS lie in the philosophy of science, the institutional sociology of science, and the sociology of scientific knowledge
emphasis on production of scientific knowledge rather than technology and material culture in social and political life
• upstream/downstream reflects the importance of production contexts over use contexts
o studies the actor groups involved in creation
o how social problems are shaped by scientific knowledge, technical decisionmaking, and material forms
science and technology are socially constructed
• could it be done along more equitable, sustainable, democratic lines?
Normativity is a central debate to the contemporary state of the field
Construction of science and technology as part of the construction of social, political, and cultural life
Concise treatments of expansive literatures
Ch 1 naïve realist view of science and sets out to challenge it with major movements in the philosophy of science since the Vienna Circle
Ch 2 extended analysis of Thomas Kuhn
Focus on
• sociology of scientific knowledge
• actor-network theory
• laboratory studies
• controversy studies

Chapter 2 – The Kuhnian Revolution
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
Rejected formalist view with normative stance
Focused on the activities of and around scientific research
Rejected steady progress, in favor of periods of normal science punctuated by revolutions
Reworked standard concepts of science with
• rationalist emphasis on power of ideas
• positivist views on the nature and meaning of theories
• Wittgenstein’s ideas on forms of life and perception
Whig history: attempts to construct the past as a series of steps leading to present views
• Esp in science, temptation to judge the past through the lens of accepted truths through the lens of the present
• Because events follow causes, so can’t explain teleologically as representative of progress
• Its removal makes room for explanations that include more irregular changes
Normal science
• Members of a field share
o Recognition of key past achievements in their field
o Beliefs about what theories are correct
o Understanding of the important problems of the field and the methods for solving them
• Scientists doing normal science share a paradigm
o Emphasis on a particular scientific achievement as an example
• Kuhn assumes such achievements provide theoretical frameworks and methods applicable to further research
• A period in which research in well structured
o Theoretical side = worldview (conceptual)
• Categories and frameworks into which to slot phenomena
o Practical side = a form of life (social)
• Patterns of behavior, frameworks for action
• Puzzle-solving
o Problems are to be solved within the terms of the paradigm
• Failure reflects badly on the researcher, not the theories/methods of the paradigm
• An unsolved problem is an anomaly for further research
Paradigms can only ever be partial representations and partial ways of dealing with a matter
• Anomalies accumulate
• May become real problems
o Then scientists start to consider changes and alternatives to the framework – Kuhn “crisis”
• Over time a robust alternative may become a paradigm, structuring a new period of normal science
Kuhn says revolutions aren’t progressive because they both build and destroy
• MT: isn’t destruction a necessary part of progress??
• Claims that theories belonging to different paradigms are incommensurable because
o people working in different paradigms see the world differently
o meanings of theoretical terms change with revolutions
• view derived in part from positivist notions of meaning
Kuhnian features
• Non-progressiveness of revolutions
• Incommensurability of paradigms
o Roots
• Positivist picture of meaning
 Meanings of theoretical terms are related to observations they imply
 Key terms don’t map between paradigms
• Prevents common measure and full communication
• Indoctrination | theory-dependence of observation
 Paradigms shape observation
• Borrows from Hanson that there is no such thing as raw observation
o Observation comes interpreted, guided by concepts and ideas
• His experience as an historian
 Difficult to make sense of past scientists’ problems, concepts, methods
 “In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds”
o Claims
• philosophers, linguists, others conclude that semantic incommensurability is an unsustainable claim
• historical justification for incommensurability
 difficulties created by changes in problems, concepts, and methods can be overcome
• radical incommensurability is an unsustainable claim, as well
 Kuhn backpedaled, saying he meant incommensurability as incomplete communication or communication breakdown
 If there’s not radical incommensurability, there’s no radical division between paradigms
• Paradigms must be linked by enough continuity of concepts and practices to allow communication
o MT: this doesn’t seem like a worthy discussion, because Kuhn defined incommensurability and paradigms
o Many science historians challenge Kuhn by demonstrating continuity from one paradigm to the next
• MT: this seems a little narrow. The idea that paradigms have to be gradual doesn’t make sense in every case. What about the world being flat? Were the same theoretical contexts applicable when people began to think about the world in a completely different way?
o Science maintains stability through change by being disunified, like a thread as described by Wittgenstein – overlapping of many fibers
• This means the image of complete breaks between periods is misleading.
 MT: I feel like Kuhn is being misinterpreted. Incommensurability of paradigms means something has been thrown into the mix that makes it such that people cannot look at phenomena is the same way they did before. It doesn’t mean that everything changes and all that associated with the old paradigm is unrecognizable.
Science doesn’t track the truth. It creates different partial views that can be considered to contain truth only by those who hold those views

Incommensurability: Communicating among Social Worlds
Disciplines are epistemic cultures with unique orientations to their
• Objects
• Social units of knowledge production
• Patterns of interaction
When people from different disciplines interact, science gains a degree of unity
How do such interactions work?
• Trading zones
o Simplified languages (pidgins) allow for interaction without concern for the integrity of local cultures and practices
o Collaborations can be successful even if there’s not agreement on problems or definitions
o Perhaps overly flexible concept
• Could apply it to almost any communication
• Boundary objects
o An alternative concept for understanding communication across barriers
o Objects can form bridges across boundaries is they
• can serve as a focus of attention in different social worlds
• are robust enough to maintain their identities in those worlds
o Standardized records as key boundary objects
• Practices can continue intact, with interaction via recordkeeping
o Allow for coordination of actions without large measures of translation
o Despite some incommensurability across social boundaries, there’s considerable coordination and communication
• Incommensurability may not be a big deal in many practices
Divisions of the sciences result in disunity
• Disunity requires communication or coordination
• Even while disunified, science maintains stability
o How it does so should be studied

Conclusion: Some Impacts
Kuhn argues that
• against functionalism
o scientific communities are
• importantly organized around ideas and practices, not around ideals of behavior
 MT: people who always want to standardize usually face a challenge because people don’t focus on the behavior?
• organized from the bottom up
 not to serve an overarching goal, as functionalism posits
• against positivism
o changes in theories are not driven by data, but by changes of vision/perspective/worldview
• if worldviews are essentially theories, then data is subordinate to theory
• against falsificationism
o anomalies are typically set aside, and only used as justification for theory rejection during revolutions
• generally
o the history of science should not be told as a story of uninterrupted progress, but only change
the book created a space for thinking about the practices of science in local terms, rather than in terms of their contribution to progress or their exemplification of ideals.

Chapter 2 – The Kuhnian Revolution
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn

Focused on the activities of and around scientific research
Reworked standard concepts of science with
• rationalist emphasis on power of ideas
• positivist views on the nature and meaning of theories
• Wittgenstein’s ideas on forms of life and perception

Kuhnian features
• non-progressiveness
o periods of normal science punctuated by revolutions
• incommensurability
o inability to interact across paradigms

Non-progressiveness
The assumption/creation of progressive science is a result of Whig history
• Whig history: attempts to construct the past as a series of steps leading to present views
o Esp in science, temptation to judge the past through the lens of accepted truths through the lens of the present
o Because events follow causes, so can’t explain teleologically as representative of progress
o Its removal makes room for explanations that include more irregular changes
Normal science
• Members of a field share
o Recognition of key past achievements in their field
o Beliefs about what theories are correct
o Understanding of the important problems of the field and the methods for solving them
• Scientists doing normal science share a paradigm
o Emphasis on a particular scientific achievement as an example
• Kuhn assumes such achievements provide theoretical frameworks and methods applicable to further research
• A period in which research is well structured
o Theoretical side = worldview (conceptual)
• Categories and frameworks into which to slot phenomena
o Practical side = a form of life (social)
• Patterns of behavior, frameworks for action
• Puzzle-solving
o Problems are to be solved within the terms of the paradigm
• Failure reflects badly on the researcher, not the theories/methods of the paradigm
• An unsolved problem is an anomaly for further research
Paradigms can only ever be partial representations and partial ways of dealing with a matter
• Anomalies accumulate
• May become real problems
o Then scientists start to consider changes and alternatives to the framework – Kuhn “crisis”
• Over time a robust alternative may become a paradigm, structuring a new period of normal science
Kuhn says revolutions aren’t progressive because they both build and destroy
• MT: isn’t destruction a necessary part of progress??

Incommensurability
Claims that theories belonging to different paradigms are incommensurable because
• people working in different paradigms see the world differently
• meanings of theoretical terms change with revolutions
o view derived in part from positivist notions of meaning
Roots
• Positivist picture of meaning
o Meanings of theoretical terms are related to observations they imply
o Key terms don’t map between paradigms
• Prevents common measure and full communication
• Indoctrination | theory-dependence of observation
o Paradigms shape observation
• Borrows from Hanson that there is no such thing as raw observation
 Observation comes interpreted, guided by concepts and ideas
• His experience as an historian
o Difficult to make sense of past scientists’ problems, concepts, methods
o “In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds”
Unsustainable claims
• semantic incommensurability
• historical justification for incommensurability
o difficulties created by changes in problems, concepts, and methods can be overcome
• radical incommensurability
o Kuhn backpedaled, saying he meant incommensurability as incomplete communication or communication breakdown
o If there’s not radical incommensurability, there’s no radical division between paradigms
• Paradigms must be linked by enough continuity of concepts and practices to allow communication
 MT: this doesn’t seem like a worthy discussion, because Kuhn defined incommensurability and paradigms
 Many science historians challenge Kuhn by demonstrating continuity from one paradigm to the next
• MT: this seems a little narrow. The idea that paradigms have to be gradual doesn’t make sense in every case. What about the world being flat? Were the same theoretical contexts applicable when people began to think about the world in a completely different way?
 Science maintains stability through change by being disunified, like a thread as described by Wittgenstein – overlapping of many fibers
• This means the image of complete breaks between periods is misleading.
• MT: I feel like Kuhn is being misinterpreted. Incommensurability of paradigms means something has been thrown into the mix that makes it such that people cannot look at phenomena is the same way they did before. It doesn’t mean that everything changes and all that is associated with the old paradigm is unrecognizable in the new paradigm or vice versa.
Science doesn’t track the truth. It creates different partial views that can be considered to contain truth only by those who hold those views

Incommensurability: Communicating among Social Worlds
Disciplines are epistemic cultures with unique orientations to their
• Objects
• Social units of knowledge production
• Patterns of interaction
When people from different disciplines interact, science gains a degree of unity
How do such interactions work?
• Trading zones
o Simplified languages (pidgins) allow for interaction without concern for the integrity of local cultures and practices
o Collaborations can be successful even if there’s not agreement on problems or definitions
o Perhaps overly flexible concept
• Could apply it to almost any communication
• Boundary objects
o An alternative concept for understanding communication across barriers
o Objects can form bridges across boundaries as they
• can serve as a focus of attention in different social worlds
• are robust enough to maintain their identities in those worlds
o Standardized records as key boundary objects
• Practices can continue intact, with interaction via recordkeeping
o Allow for coordination of actions without large measures of translation
o Despite some incommensurability across social boundaries, there’s considerable coordination and communication
• Incommensurability may not be a big deal in many practices
Divisions of the sciences result in disunity
• Disunity requires communication or coordination
• Even while disunified, science maintains stability
o How it does so should be studied

Conclusion: Some Impacts
Kuhn argues that
• against functionalism
o scientific communities are
• importantly organized around ideas and practices, not around ideals of behavior
 MT: people who always want to standardize usually face a challenge because people don’t focus on the behavior?
• organized from the bottom up
 not to serve an overarching goal, as functionalism posits
• against positivism
o changes in theories are not driven by data, but by changes of vision/perspective/worldview
• if worldviews are essentially theories, then data is subordinate to theory
• against falsificationism
o anomalies are typically set aside, and only used as justification for theory rejection during revolutions
• generally
o the history of science should not be told as a story of uninterrupted progress, but only change
the book created a space for thinking about the practices of science in local terms, rather than in terms of their contribution to progress or their exemplification of ideals.

MT
it seems like the foundation of this is that the trajectory of science is not a progression. rather, it’s a series of events marking changes in how people think about what they observe. perhaps this has to do with our need for an overarching goal. Is that goal truth? If so, we don’t know how to get to truth, we can only act on what we believe to be true at any moment in time. And the way we frame, approach, and solve problems reflects how we are thinking about what we observe at that moment in time.

2.1
modernity of science
• considered exceptionally rational, free of local contexts
• straightforward sense that science is and always has been modern
• exponential growth
o 80%-90% of all scientists who have ever lived are alive now
o distant past of their fields is almost entirely irrelevant to current research
o impression of youth
• Price: “research front” represented by citation network
• Science pays most attention to current work
o It’s modern in the sense of having a present-centered outlook
o
2.2 Foundationalism
knowledge can be traced back to firm foundations
• edifice of higher-order beliefs
o sensory impressions
o rational principles
central metaphor
• building planted in the ground
• what lies at the foundation?
o Sense experiences are the most plausible candidates for empirical foundations
• Data points
• Finite collection of data points can’t determine which generalizations to believe (induction problem)
• Even beliefs about sense impressions aren’t secure
o Kuhn claims that scientific revolutions change what scientists observe
• Doubt what we see or hear
• Reinterpret in terms of what we know
o If we imagine the foundations to be already ordered collections of sense impressions, then the problem becomes more obvious
• We should abandon the metaphor of solid foundations on which our knowledge sits
2.3
the theory-dependence of observation
• people’s interpretations are affected by what they expect, etc.
o there are disagreements about how important this is for understanding science
o the organization of data as observation means it is theory-dependent
• what scientists study/value of solving certain problems over others
• relevance depends on established practices and shared theoretical values
 MT: there’s a financial element to this, too, and therefore a political one, as well.