From Modernism to Postmodernism Changing Philosophical Images of Science

Instead of the whole intellectual and social order being subordinated to spiritual principles, every activity has declared its independence, and we see politics, economics, science, and art organizing themselves as autonomous kingdoms, which owe no allegiance to any higher power. 

The secularized world of modernism made the autonomous individual or community the subject of knowledge, the source of values, the possessor of rights and the focus of utility. 

The doctrine of textualism encouraged some sociologists of scientific knowledge to identify a scientific field with its literary inscriptions . Latour and Steve Woolgar, in particular, used Derrida s view of the constitutive role of writing in the representation of facts to link the generation and acceptance of facts in science to the deployment and dissemination of inscription devices , or machines such as chart recorders, oscilloscopes, scales or even NMR spectrometers that transform pieces of matter into written documents . Tied to networks of tex- 

Unfortunately, Reception Iheory provided little guidance in the identification and characterization of these extra-textual expectations and purposes . Phenomenology, ethnomethodology and Foucault s genealogical inquiries were more forthcoming in this respect, drawing attention to the dimensions of practice and power involved in textualist meaning and discourse. 

Foucault and the Genealogical Method After May 1968, Foucault shifted the focus of his inquiries from discourse to power. He transformed his archaeological analysis of the anonymous rules of discursive practices into a genealogical account of the relations between these 

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FROM MODERNISM TO POSTMODERNISM CHANGING PHILOSOPHICAL IMAGES OF SCIENCE... 

From Modernism to Postmodernism Changing Philosophical Images of Science... 

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