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Social Studies of Science
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Constructive Science and Technology Studies

On the Path to Being?

Carol J. Steiner

Jitter Philosophical Services, 3 Webb Street, Glen Iris, Victoria 3146, Australia; fax: +61 3 9889 1632; csteiner{at}eisa.net.au

Constructivism's founding assumptions are being questioned by its proponents and opponents in a quest for alternatives to, or refined forms of, that theoretical approach. This paper suggests that such questioning may indicate that science and technology studies (S&TS) is ready to reconsider another approach based on Heideggerian phenomenology. Some innovators and innovation scholars appear ready to move on to this alternative approach to knowledge. They seem to have opened to the Heideggerian alternative by confronting the practical inadequacies of orthodox science and engineering. This paper suggests that S&TS is facing a similar confrontation with the inadequacies of constructivism's founding assumptions. The alternative approach explored involves a partnership with `Being' that decentres the subject, but without resorting to heterogeneous agency or to realism. This partnership is based on understanding the implications of the interplay between `Being' granting and withholding knowledge. This paper suggests that S&TS may now be ready to look at this interplay as an alternative to people constructing knowledge.

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 29, No. 4, 583-616 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/030631299029004005
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