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Philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science have grown increasingly interested in the daily practices of scientists. Recent studies have drawn linkages between scientific innovations and more ordinary procedures, craft skills, and sources of sponsorship. These studies dispute the idea that science is the application of a unified method or the outgrowth of a progressive history of ideas. The central purpose of this book is to explore the possibility of an empirical approach to the epistemic contents of science that avoids the pitfalls of scientism and foundationalism.
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Scientific practice and ordinary action Scientific practice and ordinary action Ethnomethodology and social studies of science MICHAEL LYNCH Brunei University CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521431521 © Cambridge University Press 1993 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1993 First paperback edition 1997 A catalogue recordfor this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Lynch, Michael, 1948Scientific practice and ordinary action : ethnomethodology and social studies of science / Michael Lynch. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-43152-2 1. Science - Social aspects. 2. Science - Methodology. 3. Sociology-Methodology. 4. Ethnomethodology. I. Title. Q175.5.L9 1993 306.4'5-dc20 92-34526 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-43152-1 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-43152-2 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-59742-5 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-59742-0 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2005 To Nancy Contents Acknowledgments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 page ix Introduction Ethnomethodology The demise of the "old" sociology of science The rise of the new sociology of scientific knowledge Phenomenology and protoethnomethodology Wittgenstein, rules, and epistemology's topics Molecular sociology From quiddity to haecceity: ethnomethodological studies of work Conclusion 265 309 Name index Subject index 321 329 vn xi 1 39 71 117 159 203 Acknowledgments Although I wrote this book, I cannot take full credit (or, for that matter, blame) for its contents. The book explores the possibility of developing what I am calling a. post analytic approach to the study of scientific practices. As should be obvious throughout, this orientation is strongly influenced (perhaps infected) by Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodological approach to situated practical action and practical reasoning. For the past twenty years, I have had the benefit of reading numerous unpublished drafts of Garfinkel's writings and attending many lectures and seminars in which he and his students discussed and demonstrated novel ways to investigate the production of social order. The specific references I have made in this book to published and unpublished writings can cover only a small part of what I learned from Garfinkel, his colleagues, and his students, including Eric Livingston, Albert (Britt) Robillard, George Girton, Ken Morrison, Ken Liberman, Richard Fauman, Doug Macbeth, Melinda Baccus, and Stacy Burns. My initial efforts to understand ethnomethodology were aided immeasurably by close friends and colleagues, including David Weinstein, Alene Terasaki, Bill Bryant, and Nancy Fuller,