The Study of Man. By Michael Polanyi. Price, $1.75. Pp. 102. University of Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Ave., Chicago 37, 1959. One subtitle to Polanyi's challenging and fascinating book might be The Evolution and Natural History of Error , for Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline. According to Polanyi not only is this a radical and important error, but it is harmful to the objectives of science itself. Another subtitle could be Farewell to Detachment , for in place of cold objectivity he develops the idea that science is necessarily intensely personal. It is a human endeavor and human point of view which cannot be divorced from nor uprooted out of the human matrix from which it arises and in which it works. For a good while

Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy

The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science

Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”

The year 2018 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of publication of Joan Tronto’s Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. The argument advanced by Tronto in Moral Boundaries represented a significant intervention in feminist scholarship on the question of care and its provision, principally because it called our attention to the political contexts within which this work is always conducted. In this symposium, we have asked contributors to revisit Tronto’s contribution with an eye toward assessing the current state of our theoretical as well as political engagement with the question of “social reproduction” in its many forms. This symposium concludes with a response by Tronto to her interlocutors. For those who are unfamiliar with this path-breaking book or who have not read it recently, Moral Boundaries opens with a question: “What would it mean in late twentieth century American society to take seriously, as part of our definition of a good society, the values of caring — attentiveness, responsibility, nurturance, compassion, meeting others’ needs — traditionally associated with women and traditionally excluded from public consideration?” (2–3). The very asking of this question represented a challenge to much influential feminist scholarship at the

Symposium Review: 25th Anniversary of Moral Boundaries by Joan Tronto

This chapter describes the development of actor-network theory and feminist material semiotics by exploring case studies within STS (science and technology studies). It notes that STS (and so material semiotics) develops its theoretical approaches through empirical case studies, and notes that unless this is understood it is difficult to understand the significance of 'actor network theory' or any other STS theory or approach.

/pdf/actor-network-theory-and-material-semiotics-328tsqu0tw.pdf

Actor-network theory and material semiotics

Actor-network theory has, until recently, narrated the co-evolution of science and society in terms of dramatic triumphs and betrayals. This paper attempts to incorporate 'ambivalence' into the process of enrolment and black-boxing so central to the construction and continuation of actor-networks. Though ambivalence towards one's own and others' attributed roles in the network would seem to threaten the integrity of a given network, we suggest that it might reinforce it. Drawing upon fieldwork on the UK Cervical Screening Programme (CSP), we show how General Practitioners seriously problematize their own roles and the black-boxed status of the Cervical Smear Test within the CSP network. However, we also show that it is this very problematization that serves to render the network durable and workable.

Actor-Networks and Ambivalence: General Practitioners in the UK Cervical Screening Programme

This article examines the organisational and cultural factors, both formal and informal, which lead to the inappropriate non-use of sick leave or 'presenteeism'. A two-stage research process supplies the empirical data for this paper. Preliminary quantitative research was gathered from 200 questionnaires sent to staff at two centres; however, the results from this stage were inconclusive. The article therefore focuses on the findings from qualitative data, gathered through the use of in-depth interviews and focus groups with 30 workers at a single site in the public sector. Taking further the study by McKevitt et al. (1997), we consider whether presenteeism results in subsequently higher rates of sick leave. By understanding the fears associated with taking sick leave, we suggest that sick leave can be understood as a 'risk-taking' activity rather than a health-promoting one. In addition, informal discussions with management suggest that managers do not appreciate that policies designed to reduce sick lea...

Sickness absence as risk-taking behaviour: a study of organisational and cultural factors in the public sector.

While it is possible to define ANT in a series of abstract bullet points to do so is to miss most of the point. Instead it explores and theorises the world through rich case studies. This means that, like symbolic interactionism, for ANT words are never enough: you need to practice it. In this paper we work empirically, drawing on an ANT-inflected ethnography of Norwegian salmon farming, and also dialogically. We do this because we want to show that for ANT theory is created, recreated, explored and tinkered with in particular research practices. Indeed, ANT is probably best understood as a sensibility, a set of empirical interferences in the world, a worldly practice, or a lively craft that cherishes the slow processes of knowing rather than immediately seeking results or closure. In particular it is sensible to materiality, relationality, heterogeneity, and process. At its best it understands itself as working in the world to create analytical contexts; but also on the world, to articulate and press particular contexts and their politics. As a part of this it explores the contingencies of power, generating tools to undo the inevitability of that power, while working on the assumption that other and better worlds are possible.

/pdf/ant-and-politics-working-in-and-on-the-world-3a701g07wu.pdf

ANT and Politics: Working in and on the World

In this article, we explore the potential of actor network theory and feminist material semiotics as a set of tools for critical policy analysis. We describe their focus on material heterogeneity, ontological multiplicity and performativity, and consider how this both generates political and policy possibilities and impossibilities and also creates the potential for change. We explore this by considering the British policy response to the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic, which we treat as a case of ontological multiplicity, and ask what might have happened if policy makers had recognized and responded to this multiplicity.

/pdf/ant-multiplicity-and-policy-24qea73aei.pdf

ANT, multiplicity and policy

Choice and birth method: mixed-method study of caesarean delivery for maternal request.

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