RE: Practice Theories?

Alan Stockdale (stockdal who-is-at di-145g.mit.edu)
Tue, 19 Dec 95 10:29:47 PST

John,

If you take a look at Latour, also take a look at Mike Lynch's
Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and
Social Studies of Science. It has a great Wittgensteinian
inspired critique of the actor-network and other science studies
approaches. Lynch argues that Latour's approach offers a
mirror image of logical positivism that retains its
grammatical structure. From his perspective, Latour's
approach fails as a practice approach because it formalizes
textual and discursive practices and in so doing separates
them from their use. Take a look at chapter 3. This is a
wonderful book. The chapter on conversation analysis
is rough going, but, that apart, it is worth rereading and
rereading. It is very penetrating. It recently won the Merton
Award, which is hilarious!

Alan.

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Alan Stockdale
Dibner Institute, MIT E56-100, 38 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
(also: Anthropology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254.)
Tel: 617 258 7640 Fax: 617 253 9858
e-mail: stockdal who-is-at di-145g.mit.edu OR stockdal@mit.edu
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