If nothing else, the twelve papers assembled in this volume should lay
to rest the idea that the interesting debates about the nature of
science are still being conducted by "internalists" vs. "externalists,""
rationalists" vs. "arationalists, n or even "normative epistemologists"
vs. "empirical sociologists of knowledge. " Although these distinctions
continue to haunt much of the theoretical discussion in philosophy and
sociology of science, our authors have managed to elude their strictures
by finally getting beyond the post-positivist preoccupation of defending
a certain division of labor among the science studies disciplines. But
this is hardly to claim that our historians, philosophers, sociologists,
and psychologists have brought about an "end of ideology," or even an
"era of good feelings," to their debates. Rather, they have drawn new
lines of battle which center more squarely than ever on practical
matters of evaluating and selecting methods for studying science. To get
a vivid sense of the new terrain that was staked out at the Yearbook
conference, let us start by meditating on a picture. The front cover of
a recent collection of sociological studies edited by one of us (Woolgar
1988) bears a stylized picture of a series of lined up open books
presented in a typical perspective fashion. The global shape comes close
to a trapezium, and is composed of smaller trapeziums gradually
decreasing in size and piled upon each other so as to suggest a line
receding in depth. The perspective is stylized too.
