Barnes, Barry, David Bloor and John Henry. Scientific Knowledge; A Sociological Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1996.
An apologetics for sociology of science, Scientific Knowledge intends to demonstrate
the necessity and centrality of sociology inquiry into the formation of scientific
knowledge. Beginning with observation, the authors argue that "cultural response
is underdetermined by psychological stimuli" (15); in other words, one is not
forced to believe what one sees. Following is a gloss on the norms of interpretation,
and how deciding or knowing what one is looking for in advance allows one to
look for it, and reject data as untrue that does not support the hypothesis.
At the center of the work is a five point definition and explication of finitism,
applied to successively to words, to beliefs and to exemplars: 1) the future
application of classification/beliefs/exemplars are open-ended; 2) No classification/belief/exemplar
is ever indefeasibly correct; 3) All acts of classification/belief/exemplar
are revisable; 4) Successive classifications/ beliefs/exemplars are not independent;
and 5)The application of different classifications/beliefs/exemplars are not
independent of each other. These tenents allow the authors to address key problems
in acquiring and establishing knowledge. Clustered beliefs, classifications
and exemplars create models (106), and models are used to extend analogies from
one body of knowledge to another. "A successful model is a pragmatic accomplishment,
something which those who evaluate it take to serve their purposes." (109)
The authors gently refute what they see as Harry Collins's human-centered idealism,
and themselves argue for physical and natural causes as part of the historically
situated goals, resistances and interests as the "sociologically interesting
causes of scientific action." (120) (I think, roughly, they allow for the but
it doesn't work reaction that Latour, Pickering and Bijker reject as asymmetrical
or "unframed"). The authors review Leviathan and the Air-Pump as support
for their goal- and interest-driven picture of the sociology of knowledge, and
conclude, setting logic aside, that 2 + 2 equals 4 only in a system where everyone
is best served when these symbols have an agreed-upon understanding.