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CS92PROD
Sciences as Social and Cultural Practices

SISP 205
Spring 2015
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: PHIL 288, ENVS 205
Certificates: Environmental Studies, Environmental Studies

Philosophers long construed scientific knowledge as achieved and assessed by individual knowers, but recent work has recognized a greater epistemic role for scientific communities, disciplines, or practices and taken seriously the social and cultural context of scientific research. This course surveys some of the social, cultural, and political aspects of the sciences that have been most important for scholars in science studies, including differences between experimental, field, and theoretical science; the role of disciplines and other institutions in the sciences; interactions between science and its various publics; the politics of scientific expertise and science policy; the globalization of science; the social dimensions of scientific normativity, from metrology to conceptions of objectivity; race and gender in science; and conceptual exchanges between sciences and other discursive practices. The concept of the social will also receive critical attention in its purported contrasts to what is individual, natural, rational, or cultural.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS SISP
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ENVS-MN)(ENVS)(IDEA-MN)(IDEA)(PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus)(STS)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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