The mangle of practice time, agency, and science / [electronic resource] :
Andrew Pickering.
- University of Chicago Press, c1995.
- 1 online resource (281 p.) : ill.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-273) and index.
Preface; 1. The Mangle of Practice; 1.1 Science as Practice and Culture; 1.2 Representation and Performativity; 1.3 Agency and Emergence; 1.4 The Mangle of Practice; 1.5 More on the Mangle; Part One: Instantiations; 2. Machines: Building the Bubble Chamber; 3. Facts: The Hunting of the Quark; 4. Concepts: Constructing Quaternions; 5. Technology: Numerically Controlled Machine Tools; Part Two: Articulations; 6. Living in the Material World; 7. Through the Mangle; References; Index.
This ambitious book by one of the most original and provocative thinkers in science studies offers a sophisticated new understanding of the nature of scientific, mathematical, and engineering practice and the production of scientific knowledge. Andrew Pickering offers a new approach to the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account the extraordinary number of factors--social, technological, conceptual, and natural--that interact to affect the creation of scientific knowledge. In his view, machines, instruments, facts, theories, conceptual and mathematical structures, discipli.