Abstract
In the inaugural issue of this journal, David Tyfield (2008) used some recent discussions about "meaning finitism" to conclude that the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is an intellectually hopeless basis on which to erect an intelligible study of science. In contrast, the authors show that Tyfield's argument rests on some profound misunderstandings of the SSK. They show that his mischaracterization of SSK is in fact systematic and is based on lines of argument that are at best incoherent.
Highlights
In the inaugural issue of this journal, David Tyfield (2008) used some recent discussions about “meaning finitism” to conclude that the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is an intellectually hopeless basis on which to erect an intelligible study of science
Pace Wade Hands (1994), SSK can underwrite the claims of economics of scientific knowledge (ESK)
For Tyfield, Hands’s argument itself is a bit stronger suggesting that SSK necessarily underwrites the claims of ESK
Summary
In the inaugural issue of this journal, David Tyfield (2008) used some recent discussions about “meaning finitism” to conclude that the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is an intellectually hopeless basis on which to erect an intelligible study of science. We shall argue that Tyfield appears unaware of a scholarly literature that provides more than sufficient evidence of the futility of his claims, a literature that opponents of SSK who routinely mischaracterize their opponents’ arguments have not engaged.
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