AN INVITATION TO HARRY COLLINS’ HUMANISTIC SOCIOLOGY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202663338Keywords:
Collins, STS, socialness, forms of life, scientific knowledgeAbstract
Harry Collins has developed a humanistic sociology of science, technology, and expertise. This is based on the insight that humans are distinctive by virtue of having socialness. Socialness is made possible by language. But language is only meaningful in a social form of life. Only human beings are capable of being collective representations. Therefore only human beings are capable of being and doing knowledge. Collins shows that expertise is real and only exists in forms of life. So, for society to have scientific knowledge, it has to protect and respect the integrity of the human forms of life, communities of scientific knowledge-making, communities that embody expertise.
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