"Largely as a result of . . . more careful historical and sociological studies of what scientists actually do . . . [there has been] a major upset in the received wisdom (roughly consonant with scientists own self-understanding of their endeavor) that had prevailed among historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science prior to the 1960s. The principal point that emerges from three decades of careful historical and sociological analysis is that, on every level, choices are made -- of what it is that we want to know, of how we ought to proceed, of what counts as knowledge -- and these choices are social even as they are cognitive and experimental. As Steven Shapin provocatively puts it, `There is as much society inside science as outside'." (Evelyn Fox Keller "Science and its Critics," Academe, September-October 1995, 11).
Background
The need to understand the nature, meaning, and impact of scientific, medical and technological change has never been greater. In recent years, science studies (short for historical or philosophical or sociological or anthropological studies of science, medicine, and technology) has been transformed by the urgency of these concerns. Benefiting from interaction with the humanities and social sciences, science studies has come to understand its role as one not merely of recounting a string of scientific discoveries, but of understanding and communicating the social, cultural and ethical dimensions of science -- of how science is generated from and reincorporated into a wider social and cultural context, of how scientific activity inevitably gives rise to complex moral and policy issues. It is this new role that today is making science studies a bridge between many disciplines and audiences -- experts and the educated public; the university, industry, and policy-makers -- by providing a ground for intellectual exchange across traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries. Science studies today range from research into the nature of scientific creativity to the culture of laboratory work; from the history of how charitable foundations have promoted specific economic theories to the nature of scientific controversies to the diffusion of innovative scientific and biomedical technologies. Not only does science studies provide critical insights into the development of modern science and science-based technologies, it has the capacity for connecting various realms of scholarship and expanding into a broad, multi-disciplinary enterprise. Within the academic community, teaching and research give students a better appreciation of science as a human activity, and can serve as the catalyst for interaction between all of the academic disciplines over the nature and impact of the scientific enterprise.
If one believes that economics is a science, studying the practice we
call "economics" (as opposed to studying economics) is studying the
philosophy, history, and sociology of economic science. Consequently the tools
and conceptual frameworks that we employ to study any science can be employed
in studying "economics." The objective of this course is to employ
science studies to understand modern economic science. The course will
utilize the science studies materials to understand/unpack/analyze/interpret
work in economics.
Students will purchase the Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario
Bagioli. Additionally, photocopies of other material (articles and book
excerpts) will be on e-reserve
at Perkins Library.
Each week there will be two primary required readings and at least one secondary reading. (Background reading is noted for you to draw materials for your final paper.) Students will prepare a 1-2 page “response” to each of the primary readings, and will turn these in at the end of each seminar. The weekly seminar will consist of a discussion of the primary readings, and will be based on the “responses”. The seminar will be led a student who will have done the secondary readings as well.
Additionally all students will prepare, as a final exercise, an “Introduction” to their own set of “response” papers, giving those papers an overarching form and interpretation in order to answer the question: “How do these Science Studies materials inflect our understanding of what economists do, and how they do it?” This final exercise will be due at the time of the registrar-scheduled final examination.
Grades will be based on the following:
40% for the weekly “response” papers; 15% for performance leading the seminar
presentations; 15% for general seminar participation; 30% for the final
exercise. It is not “ok” to miss a
seminar, ever: this means that an absence is graded as a zero. It is not “ok” to be unprepared for a
seminar, ever: this means that failure to turn in the reading response at the
end of each seminar is graded as a zero. I will attempt to keep you informed
about your grades during the semester through Blackboard.
Boldface materials are on reserve at Perkins. CAPITALIZED materials are in the
Bagioli reader.
Week 1: Introduction: (Primary
Week 2: Issues in science, and thinking about science, at the beginning of
the twentieth century. (Primary
Week 3: Thinking about science in the interwar years. Positivism: The early Wittgenstein,
Week 4: Issues in science, and thinking about science, at the mid-point of
the twentieth century. (Primary Readings: David A. Hollinger’s “Free Enterprise
and Free Inquiry: The Emergence of Laissez-Faire Communitarianism in the
Ideology of Science in the
Week 5: Theories and Evidence: (Primary
Week 6: Scientific Communities: (Primary
Week 7: Science and Objectivity. (Primary
Week 8: Constructing Scientific Truth. (Primary
Week 9: The Rhetoric of Science. (Primary
Week 10: Gendered Science. (Primary
Week 11: Actors and Networks. (Primary
Week 12: Science and Practice. (Primary
Week 13: Performativity. (Primary
Week 14: Models. (Primary