EBOOK: Science, Social Theory & Public Knowledge

EBOOK: Science, Social Theory & Public Knowledge PDF Author: Alan Irwin
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335225896
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
How might social theory, public understanding of science and science policy best inform one another? What have been the key features of science-society relations in the modern world? How are we to re-think science-society relations in the context of globalization, hybridity and changing patterns of governance? This topical and unique book draws together the three key perspectives on science-society relations: public understanding of science, scientific and public governance, and social theory. The book presents a series of case studies (including the debates on genetically modified foods and the AIDS movement in the USA) to discuss critically the ways in which social theorists, social scientists, and science policy makers deal with science-society relations. ‘Science' and 'society' combine in many complex ways. Concepts such as citizenship, expertise, governance, democracy and the public need to be re-thought in the context of contemporary concerns with globalization and hybridity. A radical new approach is developed and the notion of ethno-epistemic assemblage is used to articulate a new series of questions for the theorization, empirical study and politics of science-society relations.

EBOOK: Science, Social Theory & Public Knowledge

EBOOK: Science, Social Theory & Public Knowledge PDF Author: Alan Irwin
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335225896
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
How might social theory, public understanding of science and science policy best inform one another? What have been the key features of science-society relations in the modern world? How are we to re-think science-society relations in the context of globalization, hybridity and changing patterns of governance? This topical and unique book draws together the three key perspectives on science-society relations: public understanding of science, scientific and public governance, and social theory. The book presents a series of case studies (including the debates on genetically modified foods and the AIDS movement in the USA) to discuss critically the ways in which social theorists, social scientists, and science policy makers deal with science-society relations. ‘Science' and 'society' combine in many complex ways. Concepts such as citizenship, expertise, governance, democracy and the public need to be re-thought in the context of contemporary concerns with globalization and hybridity. A radical new approach is developed and the notion of ethno-epistemic assemblage is used to articulate a new series of questions for the theorization, empirical study and politics of science-society relations.

Interpretation and Social Knowledge

Interpretation and Social Knowledge PDF Author: Isaac Ariail Reed
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226706729
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
For the past fifty years anxiety over naturalism has driven debates in social theory. One side sees social science as another kind of natural science, while the other rejects the possibility of objective and explanatory knowledge. Interpretation and Social Knowledge suggests a different route, offering a way forward for an antinaturalist sociology that overcomes the opposition between interpretation and explanation and uses theory to build concrete, historically specific causal explanations of social phenomena.

Knowledge and the Social Sciences

Knowledge and the Social Sciences PDF Author: David S. Goldblatt
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415329750
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Knowledge and the Social Sciences: Theory, Method, Practice looks at the role of the social sciences in explaining and exploring what has been called the explosion of knowledge in the contemporary world.

Approaches to Social Enquiry

Approaches to Social Enquiry PDF Author: Norman Blaikie
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745634494
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Since its initial publication, this highly respected text has provided students with a critical review of the major research paradigms in the social sciences and the logics or strategies of enquiry associated with them. This second edition has been revised and updated.

Southern Theory

Southern Theory PDF Author: RAEWYN. CONNELL
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367719418
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Southern Theory presents the case for a radical re-thinking of social science and its relationships to knowledge, power and democracy on a world scale. Mainstream social science pictures the world as understood by the educated and affluent in Europe and North America. From Weber and Keynes to Friedman and Foucault, theorists from the global North dominate the imagination of social scientists, and the reading lists of students, all over the world. For most of modern history, the majority world has served social science only as a data mine. Yet the global South does produce knowledge and understanding of society. Through vivid accounts of critics and theorists, Raewyn Connell shows how social theory from the world periphery has power and relevance for understanding our changing world from al-Afghani at the dawn of modern social science, to Raul Prebisch in industrialising Latin America, Ali Shariati in revolutionary Iran, Paulin Hountondji in post-colonial Benin, Veena Das and Ashis Nandy in contemporary India, and many others. With clarity and verve, Southern Theory introduces readers to texts, ideas and debates that have emerged from Australia's Indigenous people, from Africa, Latin America, south and south-west Asia. It deals with modernisation, gender, race, class, cultural domination, neoliberalism, violence, trade, religion, identity, land, and the structure of knowledge itself. Southern Theory shows how this tremendous resource has been disregarded by mainstream social science. It explores the challenges of doing theory in the periphery, and considers the role Southern perspectives should have in a globally connected system of knowledge. Southern Theory draws on sociology, anthropology, history, psychology, economics, philosophy and cultural studies, with wide-ranging implications for social science in the 21st century.

Contested Knowledge

Contested Knowledge PDF Author: Steven Seidman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119167590
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In the sixth edition of Contested Knowledge, social theorist Steven Seidman presents the latest topics in social theory and addresses the current shift of 'universalist theorists' to networks of clustered debates. Responds to current issues, debates, and new social movements Reviews sociological theory from a contemporary perspective Reveals how the universal theorist and the era of rival schools has been replaced by networks of clustered debates that are relatively 'autonomous' and interdisciplinary Features updates and in-depth discussions of the newest clustered debates in social theory—intimacy, postcolonial nationalism, and the concept of 'the other' Challenges social scientists to renew their commitment to the important moral and political role social knowledge plays in public life

The Social Theory of Practices

The Social Theory of Practices PDF Author: Stephen P. Turner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745678289
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
This book presents the first analysis and critique of the idea of practice as it has developed in the various theoretical traditions of the social sciences and the humanities. The concept of a practice, understood broadly as a tacit possession that is 'shared' by and the same for different people, has a fatal difficulty, the author argues. This object must in some way be transmitted, 'reproduced', in Bourdieu's famous phrase, in different persons. But there is no plausible mechanism by which such a process occurs. The historical uses of the concept, from Durkheim to Kripke's version of Wittgenstein, provide examples of the contortions that thinkers have been forced into by this problem, and show the ultimate implausibility of the idea of the interpersonal transmission of these supposed objects. Without the notion of 'sameness' the concept of practice collapses into the concept of habit. The conclusion sketches a picture of what happens when we do without the notion of a shared practice, and how this bears on social theory and philosophy. It explains why social theory cannot get beyond the stage of constructing fuzzy analogies, and why the standard constructions of the contemporary philosophical problem of relativism depend upon this defective notion.

Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory

Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory PDF Author: Barry Barnes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135029024
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Originally published in 1974.

Science and the Sociology of Knowledge (RLE Social Theory)

Science and the Sociology of Knowledge (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Michael Mulkay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
How far is scientific knowledge a product of social life? In addressing this question, the major contributors to the sociology of knowledge have agreed that the conclusions of science are dependent on social action only in a very special and limited sense. In Science and the Sociology of Knowledge Michael Mulkay's first aim is to identify the philosophical assumptions which have led to this view of science as special; and to present a systematic critique of the standard philosophical account of science, showing that there are no valid epistemological grounds for excluding scientific knowledge from the scope of sociological analysis. The rest of the book is devoted to developing a preliminary interpretation of the social creation of scientific knowledge. The processes of knowledge-creation are delineated through a close examination of recent case studies of scientific developments. Dr Mulkay argues that knowledge is produced by means of negotiation, the outcome of which depends on the participants' use of social as well as technical resources. The analysis also shows how cultural resources are taken over from the broader social milieu and incorporated into the body of certified knowledge; and how, in the political context of society at large, scientists' technical as well as social claims are conditioned and affected by their social position.

Handbook of Risk Theory

Handbook of Risk Theory PDF Author: Rafaela Hillerbrand
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400714335
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1209

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Book Description
Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. But the topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research. It addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk, and it also addresses specific case studies. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoetical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. This handbook brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. We hope that the Handbook of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives.