Representing a wide range of disciplines -- biology, sociology, anthropology, economics, human ethology, psychology, primatology, history, and philosophy of science -- the contributors to this book recently spent a complete academic year at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) discussing a plethora of new insights in reference to human cultural evolution. These scholars acted as a living experiment of "interdisciplinarity in vivo." The assumption of this experiment was that the scholars -- while working and residing at the ZiF -- would be united intellectually as well as socially, a connection that might eventually enhance future interdisciplinary communication even after the research group had dispersed. An important consensus emerged: The issue of human culture poses a challenge to the division of the world into the realms of the "natural" and the "cultural" and hence, to the disciplinary division of scientific labor. The appropriate place for the study of human culture, in this group's view, is located between biology and the social sciences. Explicitly avoiding biological and sociological reductionisms, the group adopted a pluralistic perspective -- "integrative pluralism" -- that took into account both today's highly specialized and effective (sub-)disciplinary research and the possibility of integrating the respective findings on a case-by-case basis. Each sub-group discovered its own way of interdisciplinary collaboration and submitted a contribution to the present volume reflecting one of several types of fruitful cooperation, such as a fully integrated chapter, a multidisciplinary overview, or a discussion between different approaches. A promising first step on the long road to an interdisciplinarily informed understanding of human culture, this book will be of interest to social scientists and biologists alike.

This book opens up a new route to the study of knowledge dynamics and the sociology of knowledge. The focus is on the role of metaphors as powerful catalysts, and the book dissects their role in the construction of theories of knowledge. It is of vital interest to social and cognitive scientists alike.

A striking characteristic of modern knowledge society is the rapid spread of certain ideas and concepts back and forth from everyday to scientific discourses, and across many different contexts of meaning. This work attempts to open up a new road to the study of these "dynamics of knowledge". Sociologists of knowledge and recently evolutionary theorists have offered explanations that either attribute social attention to particular ideas or shifts of meaning to the predominance of certain groups. Maasen and Weingart, however, offer a radical new explanation that explores knowledge dynamics by reference to the interaction between metaphors and discourses. The study focuses on three major case studies: the spread of Darwin's phrase "struggle for existence" in the popularizing literature in turn of the century Germany; the reception of Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolution" and its identification with the term "paradigm" in the sciences and humanities; and the diffusion of the concept of "chaos" from scientific to everyday discourses.

Representing a wide range of disciplines -- biology, sociology, anthropology, economics, human ethology, psychology, primatology, history, and philosophy of science -- the contributors to this book recently spent a complete academic year at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) discussing a plethora of new insights in reference to human cultural evolution. These scholars acted as a living experiment of "interdisciplinarity "in vivo."" The assumption of this experiment was that the scholars -- while working and residing at the ZiF -- would be united intellectually as well as socially, a connection that might eventually enhance future interdisciplinary communication even after the research group had dispersed.
An important consensus emerged: The issue of human culture poses a challenge to the division of the world into the realms of the "natural" and the "cultural" and hence, to the disciplinary division of scientific labor. The appropriate place for the study of human culture, in this group's view, is located "between biology and the social sciences."
Explicitly avoiding biological and sociological reductionisms, the group adopted a pluralistic perspective -- "integrative pluralism" -- that took into account both today's highly specialized and effective (sub-)disciplinary research and the possibility of integrating the respective findings on a case-by-case basis. Each sub-group discovered its own way of interdisciplinary collaboration and submitted a contribution to the present volume reflecting one of several types of fruitful cooperation, such as a fully integrated chapter, a multidisciplinary overview, or a discussion between different approaches. A promising first step on the long road to an interdisciplinarily informed understanding of human culture, this book will be of interest to social scientists and biologists alike.

Nanotechnology has been the subject of extensive assessment hype, unlike any previous field of research and development. A multiplicity of stakeholders have started to analyze the implications of nanotechnology: Technology assessment institutions around the world, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, re-insurance companies, and academics from science and technology studies and applied ethics have turned their attention to this growing field s implications. In the course of these assessment efforts, a social phenomenon has emerged a phenomenon the editors define as assessment regime.

Despite the variety of organizations, methods, and actors involved in the evaluation and regulation of emerging nanotechnologies, the assessment activities comply with an overarching scientific and political imperative: Innovations are only welcome if they are assessed against the criteria of safety, sustainability, desirability, and acceptability. So far, such deliberations and reflections have played only a subordinate role. This book argues that with the rise of the nanotechnology assessment regime, however, things have changed dramatically: Situated at the crossroads of democratizing science and technology, good governance, and the quest for sustainable innovations, the assessment regime has become constitutive for technological development.

The contributions in this book explore and critically analyse nanotechnology s assessment regime: To what extent is it constitutive for technology in general, for nanotechnology in particular? What social conditions render the regime a phenomenon sui generis? And what are its implications for science and society?"

a ~Scientific advice to politicsa (TM), the a ~nature of expertisea (TM), and the a ~relation between experts, policy makers, and the publica (TM) are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of a ~participationa (TM) and a ~accountabilitya (TM) has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science a" politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?," "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?," "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?"

Scientific knowledge and the a ~expertsa (TM) that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new rA(c)gime of governance.

not lie in the conceptual distinctions but in the perceived functions of metaphors and whether in the concrete case they are judged positive or negative. The ongoing debates reflect these concerns quite clearly~ namely that metaphors are judged on the basis of supposed dangers they pose and opportunities they offer. These are the criteria of evaluation that are obviously dependent on the context in which the transfer of meaning occurs. Our fundamental concern is indeed the transfer itself~ its prospects and its limits. Looking at possible functions of metaphors is one approach to under standing and elucidating sentiments about them. The papers in this volume illustrate, by quite different examples, three basic functions of metaphors: illustrative, heuristic~ and constitutive. These functions rep resent different degrees of transfer of meaning. Metaphors are illustrative when they are used primarily as a literary device, to increase the power of conviction of an argument, for example. Although the difference between the illustrative and the heuristic function of metaphors is not great, it does exist: metaphors are used for heuristic purposes whenever "differences" of meaning are employed to open new perspectives and to gain new insights. In the case of "constitutive" metaphors they function to actually replace previous meanings by new ones. Sabine Maasen in her paper introduces the distinction between transfer and transforma tion.

not lie in the conceptual distinctions but in the perceived functions of metaphors and whether in the concrete case they are judged positive or negative. The ongoing debates reflect these concerns quite clearly~ namely that metaphors are judged on the basis of supposed dangers they pose and opportunities they offer. These are the criteria of evaluation that are obviously dependent on the context in which the transfer of meaning occurs. Our fundamental concern is indeed the transfer itself~ its prospects and its limits. Looking at possible functions of metaphors is one approach to under standing and elucidating sentiments about them. The papers in this volume illustrate, by quite different examples, three basic functions of metaphors: illustrative, heuristic~ and constitutive. These functions rep resent different degrees of transfer of meaning. Metaphors are illustrative when they are used primarily as a literary device, to increase the power of conviction of an argument, for example. Although the difference between the illustrative and the heuristic function of metaphors is not great, it does exist: metaphors are used for heuristic purposes whenever "differences" of meaning are employed to open new perspectives and to gain new insights. In the case of "constitutive" metaphors they function to actually replace previous meanings by new ones. Sabine Maasen in her paper introduces the distinction between transfer and transforma tion.

'Scientific advice to politics', the 'nature of expertise', and the 'relation between experts, policy makers, and the public' are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of 'participation' and 'accountability' has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science - politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?", "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?", "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?" Scientific knowledge and the 'experts' that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new regime of governance.

Nanotechnology has been the subject of extensive assessment hype, unlike any previous field of research and development. A multiplicity of stakeholders have started to analyze the implications of nanotechnology: Technology assessment institutions around the world, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, re-insurance companies, and academics from science and technology studies and applied ethics have turned their attention to this growing field s implications. In the course of these assessment efforts, a social phenomenon has emerged a phenomenon the editors define as assessment regime.

Despite the variety of organizations, methods, and actors involved in the evaluation and regulation of emerging nanotechnologies, the assessment activities comply with an overarching scientific and political imperative: Innovations are only welcome if they are assessed against the criteria of safety, sustainability, desirability, and acceptability. So far, such deliberations and reflections have played only a subordinate role. This book argues that with the rise of the nanotechnology assessment regime, however, things have changed dramatically: Situated at the crossroads of democratizing science and technology, good governance, and the quest for sustainable innovations, the assessment regime has become constitutive for technological development.

The contributions in this book explore and critically analyse nanotechnology s assessment regime: To what extent is it constitutive for technology in general, for nanotechnology in particular? What social conditions render the regime a phenomenon sui generis? And what are its implications for science and society?"

Kann Wissenschaft ein Gegenstand nicht nur fur Erkenntniskritik und historische Analyse, sondern auch fur die Soziologie sein? Lange hiess es: nein Spatestens mit Robert K. Merton andert sich dies: Seither beschaftigt sich eine Wissenschaftssoziologie mit der Frage, wie die Produktion, Verbreitung und Geltung gesicherten Wissens moglich sind.

Das erhebliche Inventar an Theorien und Methoden, das zur Beantwortung dieser Frage zur Verfugung steht, verdankt sich der Soziologie als Heimatdisziplin der Wissenschaftssoziologie angereichert hat sie es durch ihre Eingliederung in eine interdisziplinare Wissenschaftsforschung sowie durch Kooperationen mit Nachbardisziplinen. Ob Diskurse oder Systeme, ob Organisationen oder Institutionen der Wissenschaft, ob Interaktionen mit Politik oder Offentlichkeiten, ob neue Medien oder neue Arbeitsweisen, ob Nichtwissens- oder Technowissenschaftskulturen wie die Beitrage des Handbuchs schlaglichtartig zeigen, widmet sich die heutige Wissenschaftssoziologie diesen und weiteren Themen mit hoher Auflosungskraft und Differenzierung.

Die Wissenschaftssoziologie untersucht sowohl die heterogenen Bedingungen und ambivalenten Effekte der Produktion, Verbreitung und Geltung gesicherten Wissens als auch der zunehmenden Wissensbasierung der Gesellschaft insgesamt. Es spricht deshalb einiges dafur, dass sie heute als Bindestrichsoziologie mit gesellschaftsdiagnostischem Potenzial betrachtet werden kann."

Durch Informatisierung und Medialisierung werden wir als Individuen immer starker in eine technologische OEkologie eingewoben. Kann Sigmund Freuds ursprungliche Absicht, psychische Prozesse naturwissenschaftlich zu erklaren, mit den avancierten Mitteln der Technik doch noch verwirklicht werden? Ist die Psychoanalyse eine Moeglichkeit, in der technisierten und medialisierten Lebenswelt Subjektivitat neu zu fassen oder weicht sie einer vorherrschend technischen Auffassung von Koerper und Krankheit? Die Beitrage dieses Bandes fragen aus soziologischer, psychologischer, medizinischer und philosophischer Sicht nach der Relevanz des psychoanalytischen Diskurses fur unsere Gesellschaft.