The Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge: Beyond Rationality, Realism, and Social Constructivism

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Dr. Rouse is tracing the emergence of new images of science and new ways of conceptualizing and investigating scientific knowledge from criticism of philosophical and sociological disputes over realism and the rationality of science. These disputes typically presume a conception of scientific knowledge as a body of representations whose content and relation to the world must be explained, whether by reasons and evidence "internal" to science, or "external" social and practical embodiment of scientific knowledge and its temporal dynamics. Dr. Rouse believes that these disputes oversimplify and distort the political and cultural significance of the sciences in their attempt to vindicate or challenge the legitimacy of the scientific enterprise. Dr. Rouse is attempting to develop a more adequate account of these aspects of the sciences, using his account to criticize directly the concepts of the "content" of scientific knowledge and the "ontological status" of its objects which are at issue in the rationality and realism disputes. He aims to show how the positions in these disputes derive their apparent significance from their place within what he sees as problematic cultural conflicts over the "legitimacy of the modern age."