The Professional Quest for Truth: A Social Theory of Science and Knowledge(SUNY series in Science, Technology, and Society)

This book argues that the power of science as the most respected and authoritative world view is based on its superior material and organizational resources, not on its superior rationality. Fuchs approaches science as a social construct, and utilizing a theory of scientific organizations, he analyzes knowledge production in scientific fields—how they differ in their resources and how these differences affect how science is conducted. The book explains why certain fields produce science and facts, while others engage in hermeneutics and conversation; why certain specialities change through cumulation rather than fragmentation; and why some fields are relativistic while others are positivist in their self-understanding. This general theory of knowledge is applicable not only to science, but to all varieties of professional groups engaged in knowledge production.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Acknowledgments Preface by Randall Collins Chapter 1: Toward a Theory of Scientific Organizations Chapter 2: The New Sociology of Science: Philosophical and Sociological Backgrounds Epistemological Critique The Issues of Relativism and Reflexivity The Strong Program: Entering the Black Box of Scientific Rationality Chapter 3: Microsocial Studies of Science: The Empirical Evidence Facts Controversies and Closures Textuality Textual Agents Nontextual Agents Laboratories Property Chapter 4: How Social are Social Studies of Science The Idiosyncratic Nature of Scientific Production The Social Dynamics of Fact Production Mundane and Scientific Knowledge Controversies as Normal Accidents Chapter 5: The Technological Paradigm in Organizational Theory Woodward's Structural Types of Technology and Organization Perrow's Early Comparative Framework for Organization Analysis Thompson's Technological Interdependence Types Perrow's Later Comparative Framework for Organization Analysis Lawrence and Lorsch's Environmental Model of Organizational Structure Control Theory Current Debates in Organizational Theory Chapter 6: Some Comparative Observations on Science and the Professions Task Uncertainty and Stratification Mutual Dependence and Professional Workstyles Science and Art: An Organizational Comparison Organizational Control in Modern Literature The Postmodern Equation of Science and Literature Chapter 7: A Theory of Scientific Production Resource Concentration Reputational Autonomy Mutual Dependence, Heterogeneity, and Coordination Problems Size, Competition, and Change Cumulation Specialization Fragmentation Migration Task Uncertainty Bureaucratization of Control Chapter 8: Hermeneutics as Deprofessionalization The Interpretive Paradigm in Sociology The Paradox of Interpretive Methodology Hermeneutics as Organizational Structure Notes References Name Index Subject Index (Compiled by John Herrmann)

About the Author :
Stephan Fuchs is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, Durham.

Review :
"Fuchs shows how scientific activity, revealed in micro-detail, is embedded in particular kinds of organizational contexts; that the research methods and social structures of interaction in scientific communities affect the degree of uncertainty of scientists' activities; and the kind of discourse they engage in. "Fuchs ends up with both a general theory of the determinants of scientific production, and with a challenge to the current factions in the sociology of ideas and sociology of culture generally." - Randall Collins, University of California, Riverside.