Are Science and Mathematics Socially Constructed? : A Mathematician Encounters Postmodern Interpretations of Science.
Title:
Are Science and Mathematics Socially Constructed? : A Mathematician Encounters Postmodern Interpretations of Science.
Author:
Brown, Richard C.
ISBN:
9789812835253
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (336 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Rip van Winkle Awakes -- 2. A Golden Age and its End -- 3. Ingredients in the PIS Bouillabaisse -- 4. A Canary in the Mine -- 5. The Unmasking of Reason -- 6. Thought Styles and Thought Collectives -- 7. The Reluctant Revolutionary -- 8. Anything Goes -- 9. The Sociological Attack -- Anti-realism and some ontological, and methodological issues -- The Strong Program -- The French approach -- Science as rhetoric -- Science as a golem -- Science as a social construction -- Toppling the idols from their pedestals -- 10. The Deconstruction of Mathematics -- 11. Epistemic Issues -- 12. The Fallibility of Conventionalism and Fallibilism -- 13. Madison 1973 -- 14. Kto Kogo? -- Bibliography -- Index.
Abstract:
This book is a history, analysis, and criticism of what the author calls "postmodern interpretations of science" (PIS) and the closely related "sociology of scientific knowledge" (SSK). This movement traces its origin to Thomas Kuhn's revolutionary work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), but is more extreme. It believes that science is a "social construction", having little to do with nature, and is determined by contextual forces such as the race, class, gender of the scientist, laboratory politics, or the needs of the military industrial complex.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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