An Introduction to the Sociology of Science - Einzelansicht

Modern societies have delegated the production and authorization of knowledge to an extraordi-nary degree to processes of scientific inquiry. Contemporary publics seem to be quite prepared to leave many questions open to 'whatever science may come up with'; the very notion of truth has in many respects become dynamic and open to adaptation to the scientific results of the day. Yet, while the mass media typically present scientists as fact-finders and their results as answers of nature to our questions, from a sociological point of view a quite different picture emerges. Far from faithfully reporting mother nature’s messages to humanity, science as a 'social phenomenon' seems more like a bazaar of competing views, where the production of truth seems to be inex-tricably bound up with social dynamics like status-seeking, intellectual fashions, opportunism and continuous revisions of the standards of scientific merit. The course gives an introduction to this sociological perspective and may cover among others the following topics: - The interconnection of science with social processes - The way scientific knowledge is socially 'constructed' and what that means for the authority of scientific knowledge - The role of implicit knowledge in science - The internal structure of science, its organizational form, the scientific community and theoretical means to describe science as a whole in terms of 'field' or 'system'. - The Interaction of science with politics, mass media, the economy and other social fields. The readings will be announced in the first session.