Helga Nowotny & Peter B. Scott 
Re-Thinking Science 
Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic
relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting
evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society
and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to
maintain a ‘line’ to demarcate them. The view persists that there
is a one-way communication flow from science to society – with
scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates
with science.

The authors argue that changes in society now make such
communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is
transforming science not only in its research practices and the
institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological
core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have
developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science.

The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated
society from science is regularly transgressed and that the
resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the
emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or
context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and
science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis
on which a new social contract between science and society might be
constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the
elements that would comprise this new social contract.

Tabela de Conteúdo

Preface.

Chapter 1: The Transformation of Society.

Chapter 2: Beyond Modernity – Breaching the Frontiers.

Chapter 3: The Co-Evolution of Science and Society.

Chapter 4: The Context Speaks Back.

Chapter 5: The Transformation of Knowledge Institutions.

Chapter 6: The Role of Universities in Knowledge Production.

Chapter 7: How does Contextualization Happen?.

Chapter 8: Weakly Contextualized Knowledge.

Chapter 9: Strongly Contextualized Knowledge.

Chapter 10: Contextualization in the Middle Range.

Chapter 11: From Reliable Knowledge to Socially Robust
Knowledge.

Chapter 12: The Epistemological Core?.

Chapter 13: Science Moves to the Agora.

Chapter 14: Socially Distributed Expertise.

Chapter 15: Re-Visioning Science.

Chapter 16: Re-Thinking Science is not Science Re-Thought.

References.

Index

Sobre o autor

Professor Nowotny is Chair of Social Studies of Science at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich

Professor Scott is Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Kingston
University

Professor Gibbons is Secretary General of the Association of
Commonwealth Universities