Abstract
The Durkheimian concept of the density of social relationships may prove more fruitful than the historical materialist notion of a social hierarchy for thinking about the social location of epistemic agents in science. To define a scientist’s social location in terms of the density of her professional relationships with other scientists permits us to give a more precise characterization of marginalization and thus to formulate more testable hypotheses about marginalized groups in science. The notion of social density helps to explain not only how some individual scientists are more likely than others to get a hearing for their ideas, but also how scientific inquiry flourishes more in some societies than in others.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The way she explained it in an earlier paper appears to subsume the other conditions under one’s location in a hierarchy: ‘What counts as a “social location” is structurally defined. What individuals experience and understand is shaped by their location in a hierarchically structured system of power relations: by the material conditions of their lives, by the relations of production and reproduction that structure their social interactions, and by the conceptual resources they have to represent and interpret these relations’ (Wylie 2003, p. 31).
By ‘framework assumptions’, Wylie appears to mean assumptions regarding a social framework of power relationships and not a conceptual framework. The paragraph from which this quotation is taken deals with social structure and social hierarchy.
Donna Haraway (1991, pp. 183–201) makes a somewhat different but related point in her essay ‘Situated Knowledges’, emphasizing how our sense experiences are embodied.
Longino (2002a, p. 146) quotes Nelson as saying, ‘I know only what we know for some we’.
It is not at all clear that if everyone in some culture has the same categories, that they will therefore have the same beliefs. I take up this question in the last section. See also: Schmaus (2007).
Just what Longino’s ‘non-monism’ or pluralism amounts to is not at all clear. See, for example, Kitcher (2002). However, this ambiguity does not affect her defense of non-individualism and non-relativism.
Critics such as Miriam Solomon and Alan Richardson (2005, p. 215) question whether there is any empirical support from the history of science for Longino’s position that the growth of scientific knowledge depends on this fourth condition. It should be kept in mind, of course, that Longino’s four conditions are ideals and are not meant to be descriptive of any particular scientific community at any period in history.
References
Ben-David J, Aran L (1991) Socialization and career patterns as determinants of productivity of medical researchers. In: Freudenthal G (ed) Scientific growth: essays on the social organization and ethos of science. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp 321–342
Crane D (1972) Invisible colleges: diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL
Durkheim E (1893) De la division du travail social: étude sur l’organisation des sociétés supérieures. Alcan, Paris
Durkheim E (1895) Les Règles de la méthode sociologique. Alcan, Paris
Durkheim E (1955) Pragmatisme et sociologie. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris
Durkheim E (1983) Pragmatism and sociology, translation of Durkheim 1955 by J. C. Whitehouse. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gaines LJ (1998) The roots of a woman. In: Pattatuci A (ed) Women in science. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp 73–81
Haraway D (1991) Simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature. Routledge, New York
Harding S (1986) The science question in feminism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY
Harding S (1991) Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY
Kitcher P (2001) Science, truth, and democracy. Oxford University Press, New York
Kitcher P (2002) The third way: reflections on Longino’s The fate of knowledge. Philos Sci 69:549–559
Laudan L (1981) Science and hypothesis. Reidel, Dordrecht
Lennon K (2003) Naturalising and interpretive turns in epistemology. Int J Philos Stud 11:245–259
Lennon K (2004) Feminist epistemology. In: Niiniluoto I, Sintonen M, Wolenski J (eds) Handbook of epistemology. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 1013–1026
Longino H (2002a) The fate of knowledge. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Longino H (2002b) Reply to Philip Kitcher. Philos Sci 69:573–577
Merton RK (1965) On the shoulders of giants: a Shandean postscript. The Free Press, New York
Pinnick C (1994) Feminist epistemology: implication for philosophy of science. Philos Sci 61:646–657
Rollin K (2002) Gender and trust in science. Hypatia 17:95–118
Schmaus W (2007) Categories and classification in the social sciences. In: Turner SP, Risjord MW (eds) Philosophy of anthropology and sociology, handbook of the philosophy of science, vol 8. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 429–458
Scott JW (1991) The evidence of experience. Crit Inq 17:773–797
Solomon M, Richardson A (2005) A critical context for Longino’s critical contextual empiricism’ (essay review). Stud Hist Philos Sci 36:211–222
Sonnert G, Holton G (1995) Gender differences in science careers. The project access study. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ
Watson JD (1969) The double helix. Atheneum, New York
Wray KB (2002) The epistemic significance of collaborative research. Philos Sci 69:150–168
Wray KB (2007) Evaluating scientists: examining the effects of sexism and nepotism. In: Kincaid H, Dupré J, Wylie A (eds) Value-free science? ideals and illusions. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 87–106
Wylie A (2003) Why standpoint matters. In: Figueroa R, Harding S (eds) Science and other cultures: issues in philosophies of science and technology. Routledge, New York, pp 26–48
Wylie A (2007) The feminism question in science: what does it mean to “Do social science as a feminist”? In: Hesse-Biber S (ed) Handbook of feminist research. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp 567–577
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schmaus, W. A New Way of Thinking about Social Location in Science. Sci & Educ 17, 1127–1137 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9129-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9129-z