Reviewed by: Engaging Science: How to Understand Its Practices Philosophically * Paul T. Durbin (bio) Engaging Science: How to Understand Its Practices Philosophically. By Joseph Rouse. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996. Pp. ix+282; notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). In the past decade or so, Joseph Rouse has become one of the most prolific and controversial philosophers within the philosophy of science community of the United States. Engaging Science is a masterly summary and exposition of his contributions and critiques of others’ contributions to the field. It is also his best presentation to date of the perspective he espouses, which he calls “cultural studies of science.” Rouse is a careful and cautious writer. Although it can be a challenge to follow the nuances of his argumentation, he can also be quite clear about the points he wishes to make. He begins this book with a summary statement of what he opposes: “For all their complexity and internal differentiation, [the] traditions [of postpositive philosophy of science] have important common themes and fundamental shared issues that mark the disputes among them” (p. 1). In a long footnote appended to this claim, Rouse lists the many authors whose work he discusses: the “inaugurators” of postpositivism, N. R. Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, Stephen Toulmin, Paul Feyerabend, and Michael Polanyi; its “developers,” Imre Lakatos, Dudley [End Page 546] Shapere, Mary Hesse, and Larry Laudan; authors whom Rouse likes but who retain “positivist affinities,” such as Arthur Fine, Nancy Cartwright, and Ian Hacking; “realists” Wilfrid Sellars, J. J. C. Smart, Grover Maxwell, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Boyd; their “antirealist” opponents Bas van Fraassen and Clark Glymour; and—here Rouse names no individual authors—“the social constructivist tradition [that] begins with the Edinburgh Strong Programme but has been substantially modified by . . . Bath relativism, ethnographic studies, discourse analysis, actor/network theory, and constitutive reflexivity” (pp. 1–2, n. 1). In short, Rouse takes on almost all the main contributors to contemporary philosophy and sociology of science—and treats them all fairly and in detail. Rouse is equally clear at the end of the book, where social constructivism as represented by Harry Collins and Steven Yearley is compared with “cultural studies” as represented best (Rouse thinks) by Donna Haraway. This is Rouse’s final paragraph: To put the difference polemically, social constructivism is antagonistic to the cultural authority claimed by the natural sciences but uncritical of scientific practices. Cultural studies reverse this stance, aiming to participate in constructing reliable and authoritative knowledge of the world by critically engaging with the sciences’ practices of making meanings. (p. 259) It is, Rouse says, with this freedom-enhancing, life-improving critical enhancement of science that he wishes to be identified, rather than with attacks on, or defenses of, the authority of science as it is currently practiced. Historians of technology impatient with finely detailed philosophical distinctions and arguments will find Rouse’s book difficult. But those willing to do the intellectual hard labor will be rewarded with a virtually encyclopedic summary of (Rouse’s slant on) recent discussions in philosophy of science—even if they end up finding Rouse’s feminism-oriented “cultural” approach unpalatable. Paul T. Durbin Dr. Durbin is professor of philosophy at the University of Delaware, where he also directs the Medical Scholars Program and is a member of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy. He edits the Society for Philosophy and Technology’s quarterly electronic journal (http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html) and is the author of Social Responsibility in Science, Technology, and Medicine (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1992). Footnotes * Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer. Copyright © 1998 Society for the History of Technology