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Many of the issues still centered in much contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of science have already appeared problematic from the perspective of the last three decades of the social studies of science. These histories, sociologies and ethnographies of modern sciences have revealed how surprisingly deeply immersed in their historical eras have been the cognitive, technical cores of modern sciences. Feminist science studies have played an important role in this history, showing how in the midst of more general social struggles commitments to symbolic and structural gender hierarchies have helped to shape the content of modern science — its models, metaphors and narratives, its choices of topics, its favored ways of producing knowledge, its standards for what does and does not count as legitimated methods and knowledge claims. Such accounts do not support the usefulness of preoccupations with purportedly universally valid, transcultural concepts and principles, transcultural "logics' of inquiry and of explanation that have remained centered in much mainstream Anglo-American philosophy of science.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-1742-2_12

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