Science and Technology Studies

From Philosophy of Science to

Science and Technology Studies
Course Convenor
Bregham Dalgliesh

Professor-in-waitng
Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Informaton Studies
 Contents
Defniton of STS 3-5
[On being critcal (of science and technology)] 6-8
Defniton of STS 9
Petto principii inherent to STS 10-13
Rule of thumb science and technology 14-17
Origins of STS 18-22
Ratonale of STS 23-26
Approach of STS 27-29

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 Defniton of STS 1

What is ?

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 Defniton of STS 2
Scientsts & engineers per million people

R&D expenditure as a % of GDP

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 Defniton of STS 3
STS's assumptons about S&T
● Grounded historically Radically social
● Inescapably politcal Embedded culturally

Discoveries, inventons and innovatons

are shaped by all of the above forces
● S&T in turn infuence values, aspiratons, civil society, events,
insttutons and individuals, thus shaping the course of history

Aims of STS
● Understand both the technical and social dimensions of S&T
● Educate citzens to be beter-informed about modern society

● Develop critcal interdisciplinary thinking and research skills

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 [On being critcal (of science and technology)] 1
Common sense view of critcism
● Blanket rejecton and dislike of something, i.e., a prejudice
● Object is seen pejoratvely and portrayed in a negatve light

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 [On being critcal (of science and technology)] 2
Philosophical critque
● Creaton of distance between the subject and an object
● Evaluaton of its conditons of possibility (existence)

● Render the necessity of things contngent, hence open future

● University is a space for (critcal) thought to roam free

Philosophical critque in relaton to STS

● Thought refects upon objects – S&T's methodology
● Thought also refects upon itself, i.e., we

refect upon the corpus of thought that refects

(directly) upon objects – STS's methodology
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 [On being critcal (of science and technology)] 3
Critque in STS
● Critque of the scientfc and
technical thought that produces
knowledge – implicitly progressive
– of natural kinds and artefacts
 Certainty of knowledge?
 Knowledges of the world?

 Improvements in life?

● Critque seeks to interpret,

understand and explain the
social, politcal, economic,
cultural and ethical
implicatons of S&T

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 Defniton of STS 4

‘Science and Technology Studies (STS) names a heterogeneous body of research, scholars, journals,
professional associatons, and academic programs that focus on the history, social organizaton and
culture of science and technology. Begun in the 1960s in response to the recognizable growth in
science in the contemporary world and to the educatonal and economic policy implicatons of this
explosion of scientfc research and development, STS also responded to issues of public
responsibility that seemed to be engendered by technological innovaton [e.g., the Vietnam War,
the AIDS epidemic that sparked rumours of the viruses’ origin in laboratory mishaps, or COVID-19
today]. The burgeoning synergy of atenton and concern in the late 20 th century produced, by the
21st century, a contnuous concatenaton between science and public policy concerns. By the tme
STS frst emerged as an interdisciplinary conversaton, signifcant accounts of the work of scientsts,
the producton of scientfc knowledge, and the impact of technological innovaton had been
produced in each of the social sciences from their distnctve disciplinary perspectves. Across the
diverse research traditons, however, there seemed to be a shared or received view of science as the
work of great minds, usually male, discovering nature's hidden paterns and mechanisms. If the
“focused confuence” of research begged for integraton…, STS scholarship not only integrated the
existng scholarship but revised these conventonal accounts of science[, too]’.
Roosth, Sophia & Silbey, Susan (2008). Science and Technology Studies: From Controversies to Post-Humanist
Social Theory. In B. S. Turner (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1.

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 Petto principii* inherent to STS 1

What is science?

* Logical fallacy of assuming the premise

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 Petto principii inherent to STS 2

What is technology?

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 Petto principii inherent to STS 3

What is society?

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 Petto principii inherent to STS 4

What is the science/technology/society relatonship?

(E.g., the smartphone; the wheel; printng; gender; naton)

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 Rule of thumb science and technology 1
Aristotle's fve paths to truth

Science, art, intuiton, philosophy, wisdom

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 Rule of thumb science and technology 2
Science and technology may correspond to an
ancient distncton between knowing and doing

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 Rule of thumb science and technology 3
Formal science (of the scientsts and common sense)
Criteria Descripton
Body of organised knowledge about nature
Content
(scienta [Latn] = knowledge)

Obtain knowledge, conduct experiments, formulate

Method
theories, perform observatons, construct laws

Organised and systematc sceptcism

Attude
(knowledge is provisional state-of-the-art and to be surpassed)

Goals Explanaton, understanding, predicton, control

Language Mathematcs and technical vocabulary
Tools Instruments and technical devices and machines
Community Disciplines, credentals, professional bodies, patrons, ”turf”

Organised but very diverse actvity shaped

Process
by social forces and historical changes
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 Rule of thumb science and technology 4
Formal technology (of the engineers and lay people)

Criteria Content

Artefacts Goods/products fabricated by humans to meet

and hardware specifc needs; tools, machines and implements

A system of tacit and explicit knowledge,

Knowledge
techniques and materials for making,
and methods using and repairing artefacts

Cultural actvity Military or civil engineers,

and profession crafspeople, machine operators

Incorporated as Japanese technological prowess,

Societal enterprise know-how, R&D, producton and consumpton

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 Origins of STS 1
Philosophy of science
‘Time was, when she [Metaphysics] was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the
deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-mater, this ttle of
honour. Now, it is the fashion of the tme to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron
mourns, forlorn and forsaken … her empire gradually broke up, and intestne wars introduced the
reign of anarchy; while the sceptcs, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitaton and
setled mode of living, atacked from tme to tme those who had organised themselves into civil
communites. But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they could not entrely put a stop
to the exertons of those who persisted in raising new edifces, although on no setled or uniform
plan’.

Immanuel Kant (1781), Critque of Pure Reason

STS is a child of the 1960s, and today's ‘nomadic tribes’

● Thomas Kuhn (1962), The Structure of Scientfc Revolutons

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 Origins of STS 2
SS (Science Studies) of 1930s
● Questoned history of science as one of progress (cf. Paradigms)
● No queston of science's content having a social determinaton

SSK (Sociology of Scientfc Knowledge) of 1970s

● SS's ‘sociological’ turn claims all knowledge is social

ST&S (Science, Technology and Society) of 1960s

● Developed in the context of socio-politcal events in the USA
 Napalm, DDT, space race, Cold War, urban sprawl, nuclear energy
● Show how the pursuit of S and T afects society and social order
● Sensitse scientsts and engineers to social impact of S and T

● Main concerns are social questons of S and politcs of T

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 Origins of STS 3
STS (Science & Technology Studies) of 1980s
● Main concerns are epistemological and metaphysical
 What is knowledge and how does it relate to reality?
● Radical project envisaging S and T as discursive, social and material
● Understand social and ethical issues in the practces of S and T

● STS indicates a paradigmatc academic (inter)discipline rather

than a refecton on the impact of S and T by other disciplines

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 Origins of STS 4
Umbrella term of STS of 2000s
‘Gradually, however, a new intellectual fronter emerged—science and technology studies—
signalling with its relocated “and” that the objects under the investgatve lens were S&T in
themselves, as insttutons and practces deserving analysis by social scientsts with all of the
methods at their disposal. This STS became the umbrella under which the more academically
oriented programs, ofen those ofering graduate degrees or certfcates, began grouping
themselves by the early 1990s.

[For the STS to come, there are] three current organizatonal formats for STS—subfeld,
interdiscipline, new discipline—that difer from one another in the degree of autonomy granted to
STS to develop its own curricula, teach its own canon, and develop its own brand of professional
identty within the ecology of existng disciplines. … But there is a parallel strategy that also needs
pursuing, one more consistent with STS’s disruptve tendencies as the feld that explores the
foundatons of knowledge and hence makes the expert-dominated structures of modernity less
comfortable. … [We must use] the analytc keys of STS to open up the visions of all the knowledge-
workers of the world … to new possibilites for pulling apart the stubborn, material structures of
power and putng them back together into constructs as yet unimagined. … All one needs is that
frst baby step into STS, the radical, critcal move that asks, “Why is it so, and must it be?”’

Sheila Jasanof. 2016. The Floatng Ampersand: STS Past and STS to Come.
Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2, 233. DOI: htps://[Link]/10.17351/ests2016.78
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 Origins of STS 5
STS and SSK cooperate, collaborate and overlap
● SSK's professional associaton
 4S: Society for Social Studies of Science
● STS's professional associaton
 EASST: European Associaton for the Study of Science & Technology
 JSSTS: Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies

 APSTSN: Asia Pacifc Science Technology & Society Network

 ESOCITE: Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología

 SPR: Society for Philosophy and Technology

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 Ratonale of STS 1
STS crosses academic felds and disciplines
● Philosophical interpretatons of T
● Anthropological and sociological accounts of S&T

● Relatonship between S&T and S&T and society

● Politcs, economics and ethics of S&T

● Cultural implicatons and implicit values within S&T

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 Ratonale of STS 2
Internal (content) perspectve of S&T
● Scientsm's and progressivism's self-understanding
● Explain S&T according to internal principles and assumptons

● Requires mastery of the content of S&T and trust in expertse

External (context) perspectve of STS

● Understand S&T actvites using external methods and disciplines
● Explain the actvites of the experts without reference to expertse

● Requires mastery of the contexts of S&T (STS's raison d'être)

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 Ratonale of STS 3
Why is STS critcal of S&T?
● Scientsm and progressivism

Scientsm
● Modern, post 16th century science separates facts from values
● Science's authority: value free, objectve facts (of the mater)

● Scientsts concur about the truths about the world (black boxing)

● Science and expertse can, in principle, solve everything

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 Ratonale of STS 4
Progressivism
● Modern, post-17th century narratve of society
● Technological change inherently good and self-propagatng

● Modernity afer all is modernus, the nunc that is novum

● A modern technology in the present is a progression

upon its previous incarnaton in the immediate past

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 Approach of STS 1
STS on scientsm
● The blackbox is both empty and social and politcal
● What is scientfc knowledge?

● Does it approximate to ‘truth’?

● Are there other – non-ratonal, non-Western – ways of knowing?

STS on progressivism
● History of technological innovaton is chequered
● How does technology improve or change life?

● Who benefts and at what cost?

● Is the novum always the bonum?

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 Approach of STS 2
How do we critque the chequered careers of S&T?

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 Approach of STS 3
Envisage S&T as intertwined
● Investgate the complex interacton between S&T
● Situate S&T in the social and the social in S&T

Technoscience
● Sum total of all scientfc and technological ideas and actvites in
their material – social, politcal, cultural and economic – realites

Modern societes are thoroughly technoscientfc

● Social: norms shape acton and technoscientsts are no excepton
● Politcal: technoscientsts deploy structures and discourses

● Cultural: values shape beliefs and are embedded in artefacts

● Economic: technoscience requires vast resources and choices

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