Sciences and Cultures: Anthropological and Historical Studies of the Sciences (Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, 5)

Anthropological approaches to the sciences have developed as part of a broader tradition concerned about the place of the sciences in today's world and in some basic sense concerned with questions about the legitimacy of the sciences. In the years since the second World War, we have seen the emergence of a number of different attempts both to analyze and to cope with the successes of the sciences, their broad penetration into social life, and the sense of problem and crisis that they have projected. Among the of movements concerned about the earlier responses were the development social responsibility of scientists and technological practitioners. There is little doubt that this was a direct outgrowth of the role of science in the war epitomized by the successful construction and catastrophic use of the atomic bomb. The recognition of the deep social utility of science, and especially its role as an instrument of war, fostered curiosity about the earlier develop­ ment of scientific disciplines and institutional forms. The history of science as an explicit diSCipline with full-time practitioners can be seen as an attempt to locate science in temporal space - first in its intellectual form and second­ ly in its institutional or social form. The sociology of science, while certainly having roots in the pre-war work of Robert K. Front Matter....Pages N2-xvii A Programmatic Attempt at an Anthropology of Knowledge....Pages 1-76 On the Boundaries of Science in Seventeenth-Century England....Pages 77-100 What Should We do with the Monster? Electromagnetism and the Psychosociology of Knowledge....Pages 101-131 Science and Modern Chinese Culture....Pages 133-160 The Meaning Context of Illness and Care: Reflections on a Central Theme in the Anthropology of Medicine....Pages 161-176 The Semantics of Medical Discourse....Pages 177-212 The Necessity of Field Methods in the Study of Scientific Research....Pages 213-244 Anthropological Perspectives in the Sociology of Science....Pages 245-261 Back Matter....Pages 263-270 A programmatic attempt at an anthropology of knowledge / Yehuda Elkana On the boundaries of science in seventeenth-century England / Peter W.G. Wright What should we do with the monster? / Kenneth L. Caneva Science and modern Chinese culture / Peter Buck The meaning context of illness and care / Arthur Kleinman The semantics of medical discourse / Byron J. Good and Mary-Jo Del Vecchio Good The necessity of field methods in the study of scientific research / Robert S. Anderson Anthropological perspectives in the sociology of science / Wolf Lepenies.