History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Hasan Unal Nalbantoglu
Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University
06531, Inonu Bulvari, Ankara, Turkey
Tel.: 90- 312- 2105999 Fax: 90- 312- 2101284
e-mail: hun@metu.edu.tr
Belkis Ayhan Tarhan
Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University
Office: Graduate School of Social Sciences
Middle East Technical University,
06531, Inonu Bulvari, Ankara, Turkey
Tel.: 90- 312- 2103717 Fax: 90- 312- 2101114
e-mail: bata@metu.edu.tr
Technology as the organization of scientific practice: a Turkish case
This study is composed of mainly two parts. In the first part, following Heidegger's assertion that "the essence of technology is nothing technological" and that it is even prior to science, we focus on the idea that science and technology are no longer two separate domains. Thus, we argue that modern technology is something more than "the application of pure science", an idea which seems to be derived from a pre-supposed dualism of knowing and doing. Our key concept here is "practice" which may serve to overcome such dualism and to show knowing and doing are inseparable things. Within this general framework, we claim that the production of scientific knowledge is a practice founded upon the criterion of efficiency that is itself something technological. In the way of refining these arguments, we make a detour via the ideas of such thinkers as Althusser, Lyotard, Bourdieu and Latour.
In the second part, the above ideas are further elaborated with respect to the Turkish context. To this end, we first focus on the practices of certain institutions that have the authority of setting the priorities and policies for the 'development' of science and technology in Turkey. Furthermore, we also look at how new information technologies, specifically Internet, come to shape the scientific practice in Turkish academia. We should, however, indicate here that such empirical concern in our study can by no means be considered as an attempt of an "Applied Heidegger" kind!
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006