=================== HES POSTING ========================= I can only subscribe to Wade Hands' conclusion that we need to be clear what SSK is and what it is not, and like to contribute a bit towards that direction. a) Wade suggests that "SSK is less radical when applied to a social science like economics than when applied to natural science" because the referents of economic theories are social rather than natural. It seems to me that SSK is the more radical the 'harder' is the knowledge which it takes as its subject matter. One of the harder areas is certainly mathematics and logic, and at least the 'strong programme' in SSK has paid particular attention to these fields. Given the role of formalistic reasoning in economics the impact of SSK could be as radical (think of the Arrow-Debreu existence proofs) b) although perhaps not that widely known, Barry Barnes and David Bloor are committed realists (see Barnes 1988 The Nature of Power, and the graduate textbook Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis, by Barnes, Bloor and Henry 1996), while much of SSK in general appears to be rather hostile to a realist position. A vital distinction here is between scientific knowledge being UNdetermined and UNDERdetermined by nature. c) One commentator pointed to an alleged lack of willingness of SSK to apply its methods to itself. Well, a PhD student will be working on just that here in the Science Studies Unit in a couple of months, if all goes well. Matthias Klaes __________________________________________________ Science Studies Unit [log in to unmask] University of Edinburgh Fax (+44) 131/650 6886 ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]