Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger's early existential conception of science. He shows that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible.

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"Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger's early existential conception of science. Kochan shows convincingly that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible, even mutually reinforcing. By combining Heidegger with SSK, Kochan argues, we can explicate, elaborate, and empirically ground Heidegger's philosophy of science in a way that makes it more accessible and useful for social scientists and historians of science. Likewise, incorporating Heideggerian phenomenology into SSK renders SKK a more robust and attractive methodology for use by scholars in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Kochan's ground-breaking reinterpretation of Heidegger also enables STS scholars to sustain a principled analytical focus on scientific subjectivity, without running afoul of the orthodox subject-object distinction they often reject. Science as Social Existence is the first book of its kind, unfurling its argument through a range of topics relevant to contemporary STS research. These include the epistemology and metaphysics of scientific practice, as well as the methods of explanation appropriate to social scientific and historical studies of science. Science as Social Existence puts concentrated emphasis on the compatibility of Heidegger's existential conception of science with the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, pursuing this combination at both macro- and micro-historical levels. Beautifully written and accessible, Science as Social Existence puts new and powerful tools into the hands of sociologists and historians of science, cultural theorists of science, Heidegger scholars, and pluralist philosophers of science." -- Open Book Publishers website.

Introduction -- Chapter One. The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Phenomenology,and the Problem of the External World ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Scepticism and SSK ; 3. SSK and External-World Realism ; 4. Phenomenology and the 'Natural Attitude' ; 5. The Phenomenology of Subjectivity in Heidegger's Being and Time ; 6. Heidegger's Response to External-World Scepticism ; 7. A Heideggerian Critique of SSK's Response to External-World Scepticism ; 8. Conclusion -- Chapter Two. A Minimal Realism for Science Studies ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Heidegger's Existential Conception of Science ; 3. Getting at the Real ; 4. A Phenomenological Reformulation of SSK's Residual Realism ; 5. Rouse on Heidegger and Realism ; 6. Minimal Realism and Scientific Practice ; 7. Conclusion ; Appendix -- Chapter Three. Finitude, Humility, and the Bloor-Latour Debate ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Kantian Humility and the Thing-in-Itself ; 3. Latour's Attack on Social Constructivism ; 4. Bloor's Defence of Social Constructivism ; 5. Where the Dust Settles in the Debate ; 6. Heidegger and the Thing-in-Itself ; 7. Putting the Bloor-Latour Debate to Rest ; 8. The Humility of Science Studies ; 9. Conclusion -- Chapter Four. Things, Thinking, and the Social Foundations of Logic ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Heidegger on the Unity of Things and Thinking ; 3. Heidegger's Phenomenological History of Logic: Plato ; 4. Heidegger's Phenomenological History of Logic: Aristotle ; 5. Heidegger's Phenomenological History of Logic: Descartes ' 6. Heidegger's Phenomenological History of Logic: Kant ; 7. 'The Argument Lives and Feeds on Something' ; 8. Time and Tradition at the Existential Root of Logic ; 9. From the Phenomenology of Thinking to the Sociology of Knowledge ; 10. The Social Foundations of Logic ; 11. Conclusion -- Chapter Five. Mathēsis and the Emergence of Early-Modern Science ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Modern Science as Mathēsis ; 3. Renaissance Regressus and the Logic of Discovery ; 4. From Renaissance Regressus to Early-Modern Mathēsis ; 5. Mathematics and Metaphysics at the Cusp of the Early-Modern Period ; 6. Nature, Art, and Final Causes in Early-Modern Natural Philosophy ; 7. Conclusion -- Chapter Six. Mathematics, Experiment, and the Ends of Scientific Practice ; 1. Introduction ; 2. The Galilean First Thing and the Aims of Experiment ; 3. Releasing Experimental Things ; 4. Boyle versus Line: A Study in Experimental Fact-Making ; 5. Social Imagery and Early-Modern Science ; 6. Conclusion -- Chapter Seven. Conclusion: Subjects, Systems, and Other Unfinished Business ; Appendix -- Acknowledgements -- Bibliography -- Index.

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