The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Pergamon International Library of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Social Studies)

The Manufacture of Knowledge......Page 1
Preface......Page 4
Acknowledgements......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
1.1 Facts and Fabrications......Page 11
1.2 The Constructivist Interpretation I : Nature and the Laboratory......Page 13
1.3 The Constructivist Interpretation II: The "Decision Ladenness" of Fact-Fabrication......Page 15
1.4 The Laboratory: Context of Discovery or Context of Validation?......Page 17
1.5 The Contextuality of Laboratory Construction......Page 19
1.6 Contextual Contingency as a Principle of Change......Page 20
1.7 The Constructivist Interpretation III: Innovation and Selection......Page 21
1.8 Sources of Reconstruction: The Internal and the External......Page 24
1.9 Sensitive and Frigid Methodologies......Page 27
1.10 From the Question Why to the Question How......Page 30
1.11 The Scientist as a Practical Reasoner......Page 31
1.12 The Cognitive and the Practical Reasoner......Page 32
1.13 Data and Presentation......Page 33
Notes......Page 37
2.1 Bringing Space and Time Back In :The Indexical Logic and the Opportunism of Research......Page 43
2.2 Local Idiosyncrasies......Page 47
2.3 Occasioned Selections and the Oscillation of Decision Criteria......Page 50
2.4 The Neglected Research Site: Organisation vs . Laboratory Situation......Page 52
2.5 Variable Rules, and Power......Page 54
2.6 Conclusion......Page 56
Notes......Page 57
3.1 The Metaphor Theory of Innovation......Page 59
3.2 The Scientists' Accounts of Innovation......Page 62
3.3 Analogy Relations and the Opportunistic Logic of Research......Page 67
3.4 The Opportunism and the Conservatism of Analogical Reasoning......Page 69
3.5 Ethnotheories of Innovation, or the Assumptions Behind Accounts of Innovation......Page 71
3.6 A Metaphor- or Analogy-Theory of Failure and Mistake......Page 73
Notes......Page 76
4.1 The Scientific Community as a Unit of Contextual Organisation......Page 78
4.2 Quasi-Economic Models: From Community Gift-Giving to Community Capitalism......Page 80
4.3 The Scientist as an Economic Reasoner, or "Who are the Entrepreneurs?"......Page 84
4.4. The Labour Interpretation......Page 88
4.5 Variable Transscientific Fields......Page 91
4.6 Resource-Relationships......Page 93
4.7 Resource-Relationships: Ultrafragile and Grounded in Conflict......Page 96
4.8 The Transscientific Connection of Research......Page 98
4.9 Indeterminacy and the Transscientific Connection of Research......Page 99
Notes......Page 101
5.1 The "Products" of Research......Page 104
5.2 The Grounding of a Research Effort in the Laboratory......Page 106
5.3 The Grounding of a Research Effort in the Scientific Paper......Page 108
5.4 First and Final Versions: Th"e Dissimulation of literary Intention......Page 111
5.5 The Construction of a Web of Reason......Page 117
5.6 The Management of Relevance......Page 120
5.7 The Story of the Laboratory Continued......Page 122
5.8 The Paper-Version of Method......Page 124
5.9 The Results and Discussion of the Paper......Page 131
5.10 From the First to the Final Version Once Again......Page 133
5.11 The Transformation Function: Are there Rules of Correspondence?......Page 137
5.12 Conclusion : The Process of Conversion and the Idea of an Economy of Change......Page 140
Notes......Page 143
6.1 The Two Sciences......Page 146
6.2 The Universality of Interpretation and Understanding......Page 148
6.3 The Curious Distinction Between Interested Action and Symbolic Action......Page 150
6.4 The Symbolic and the Laboratory......Page 153
6.5 The Feedback Thesis......Page 156
Notes......Page 159
Conclusion......Page 162
Appendix 1......Page 164
Appendix 2......Page 173
References......Page 183
Index of Names......Page 192
Index of Subjects......Page 195