Missing the (question) mark? What is a turn to ontology?

Steve Woolgar · Javier Lezaun

55 citations0/0 files storedSocial Studies of Science

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Posthumanist Ethics and Activism Philosophy and History of Science Critical Realism in Sociology

Abstract

Our introductory essay in this journal's 2013 Special Issue on the 'turn to ontology' examined the shift from epistemology to ontology in science and technology studies and explored the implications of the notion of enactment. Three responses to that Special Issue argue that (I) there is no fundamental qualitative difference between the ontological turn and social constructivism, (2) we need to be wary of overly generic use of the term 'ontology' and (3) the language of 'turns' imposes constraints on the richness and diversity of science and technology studies. In this brief reply, we show how each of those critiques varies in its commitment to circumspection about making objective determinations of reality and to resisting reification. We illustrate our point by considering overlapping discussions in anthropology. This brings out the crucial difference between the science and technology studies slogan 'it could be otherwise' and the multinaturalist motto 'it actually is otherwise'.

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References

2007Thinking Through Things 2012An Inquiry into Modes of Existence 2012On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation 2013An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns 2007Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology 2013The wrong bin bag: A turn to ontology in science and technology studies?2003The Body Multiple 2012Truth in Motion

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