Science and the Mangle of Practice

长期以来，人们对科学的兴趣一直集中在科学知识上，特别是“高级”理论，但过去十年来，许多学科的学者都把科学实践——科学的实践，理论、事实、工具、制度的形成过程——作为研究的一个关键主题。皮克林博士正在对科学实践的本质进行一般性分析。这项工作的经验基础主要包括他自己工作的两个扩展案例研究，高能物理中夸克的研究和数学中四元数的发展，以及从二手历史文献中提取的三个较短的研究。他还适当地穿插了其他人种学和科学的历史研究。他通过讨论当代关于自然、理性和“社会”在科学中的作用的辩论，以及关于科学知识的客观性、相对性或历史性的相关辩论，将他的分析与更熟悉的科学知识观点联系起来。他还讨论了科学研究中的学科性，并建议对实践的共同兴趣可以为这一领域的真正综合提供基础。

Interest in science has long centered on scientific knowledge, especially "high" theory, but the past decade has seen the convergence of scholars in many disciplines upon scientific practice--the doing of science, the process of making theories, facts, instruments, institutions--as a key topic for research. Dr. Pickering is developing a general analysis of the nature of scientific practice. The empirical base for this work consists primarily in two extended case studies from his own work, the search for quarks in high energy physics and the development of quaternions in mathematics, and three shorter studies drawn from the secondary historical literature. He is also weaving in other ethnographic and historical studies of science as appropriate. He is relating his analysis to more familiar perspectives on scientific knowledge through discussion of contemporary debates on the role of nature, reason and the `social' in science and related debates on the objectivity, relativity or historicity of scientific knowledge. He is also discussing disciplinarity in science studies, and suggests that a shared interest in practice can provide the basis for a genuine synthesis in this field.