Scientific pluralism and the Chemical Revolution

In a number of papers and in his recent book, Is Water H₂O? Evidence, Realism, Pluralism (2012), Hasok Chang has argued that the correct interpretation of the Chemical Revolution provides a strong case for the view that progress in science is served by maintaining several incommensurable “systems of practice” in the same discipline, and concerning the same region of nature. This paper is a critical discussion of Chang's reading of the Chemical Revolution. It seeks to establish, first, that Chang's assessment of Lavoisier's and Priestley's work and character follows the phlogistonists' “actors' sociology”; second, that Chang simplifies late-eighteenth-century chemical debates by reducing them to an alleged conflict between two systems of practice; third, that Chang's evidence for a slow transition from phlogistonist theory to oxygen theory is not strong; and fourth, that he is wrong to assume that chemists at the time did not have overwhelming good reasons to favour Lavoisier's over the phlogistonists' views.     

美国服装社会心理学课程大纲特点分析

本文通过对美国五所大学服装社会心理学课程大纲特点的分析，旨在了解美国服装社会心理学教育的最新动态．希望能从中汲取对我国服装教育和研究可借鉴的经验。主要特点为：课程内容广泛、目的明确：教材和参考资料学术性强：学习要求严格、个性化：授课计划实践性强：课程考核合理、科学。     

论设计在可持续性消费中的作用

可持续性消费的研究已从对技术的关注转移到了对生活方式转变的探索,在对可持续性消费研究领域——环境政策、消费心理学和消费社会学中对这种转变的研究基础上,着重探讨了这些研究在设计研究和实践上的反映,以此论证了设计可以在可持续性消费中发挥重要作用。     

对“科学知识社会学”的科学解读

科学知识社会学的理论渊源来自于知识社会学、科学哲学和科学社会学,它从社会建构的纬度分析和研究科学知识的生产过程,正确消解了科学主义,对科学的完全客观性进行了否定。科学知识社会学指出科学事实和科学论文以及在此基础上形成的科学知识可以通过科学实验室制造出来,它的产生和发展具有重要作用和意义,使科学地位得到理性回归。     

从“典型”到“领袖”——媒介社会学视野中的青年形象变迁及反思

自20世纪60年代传媒对青年典型雷锋的报道开始,到新世纪各色青年领袖的登场,媒介建构的青年形象在不同时代有不同内涵,以媒介社会学的视野来分析,其背后是深层的社会政治、经济、文化影响。在这种变迁中,一方面我们可以看到社会的多元与开放,另一方面也应该注意商业资本对传媒报道的牵制及消费文化语境中的异化。     

沃特斯社会学视角与安全社会学

安全社会学(safety security-sociology)体系作为初步探索,需要对其理论依据进行考察。沃特斯社会学视角是当代社会学界一个比较好的视角,它包括结构主义和建构主义观点,涉及行动、理性、结构、系统理论四个支点,由此可以衍生出安全社会学的安全行动、安全理性、安全结构、安全系统等。     

当代中国公共安全问题的社会结构分析

社会结构是理解社会存在和发展变迁的“钥匙”,是社会学研究的核心概念;社会结构及其变迁对公共安全发展具有重要的影响,因而研究公共安全需要研究社会结构;学界关于社会结构的定义和认识很多,选取其中一种观点即把社会结构分解为十大类型对转型期主要公共安全事故进行分析,认为当代中国社会结构急剧转型及存在的不合理性是各类公共安全事故发生的社会性根源;因此需要调整安全结构,加强安全建设,推进安全法治、安全民主、安全公正,最终促进安全发展。     

Immanent philosophy of X

In this paper I examine the relationship between historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, and indeed scientists themselves. I argue that (i) they co-habit a shared intellectual territory (science and its past); and (ii) they should be able to do so peacefully, and with mutual respect, even if they disagree radically about how to describe the methods and results of science. I then go on to explore some of the challenges to mutually respectful cohabitation between history, philosophy and sociology of science. I conclude by identifying a familiar kind of project in the philosophy of science which seeks to explore the worldview of a particular scientific discipline, and argue that it too has a right to explore the shared territory even though some historians and sociologists may find it methodologically suspect.     

Was Feyerabend a Popperian? Methodological issues in the History of the Philosophy of Science

For more than three decades, there has been significant debate about the relation between Feyerabend and Popper. The discussion has been nurtured and complicated by the rift that opened up between the two and by the later Feyerabend's controversial portrayal of his earlier self. The first part of the paper provides an overview of the accounts of the relation that have been proposed over the years, disentangles the problems they deal with, and analyses the evidence supporting their conclusions as well as the methodological approaches used to process that evidence. Rather than advancing a further speculative account of the relation based on Feyerabend's philosophical work or autobiographical recollections, the second part of the paper strives to clarify the problems at issue by making use of a wider range of evidence. It outlines a historical reconstruction of the social context within which Feyerabend's intellectual trajectory developed, putting a special emphasis on the interplay between the perceived intellectual identity of Feyerabend, Feyerabend's own intellectual self-concept, and the peculiar features of the evolving Popperian research group.     

The experimenters' regress: from skepticism to argumentation

Harry Collins' central argument about experimental practice revolves around the thesis that facts can only be generated by good instruments but good instruments can only be recognized as such if they produce facts. This is what Collins calls the experimenters' regress. For Collins, scientific controversies cannot be closed by the ‘facts’ themselves because there are no formal criteria independent of the outcome of the experiment that scientists can apply to decide whether an experimental apparatus works properly or not.No one seems to have noticed that the debate is in fact a rehearsal of the ancient philosophical debate about skepticism. The present article suggests that the way out of radical skepticism offered by the so-called mitigated skeptics is a solution to the problem of consensus formation in science.