PHILOSOPHY, RHETORIC, AND THE END OF KNOWLEDGE, A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies
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loginFor the past 15 years,social epistemologyhas been a project aimed atfostering closer cooperation between humanists and social scientists inthe emerging interdisciplinary complex known as Science andTechnology Studies (STS). STS has the potential of not only redrawingdisciplinary boundaries within the academy, but ultimately, and moreimportantly, of making the academy more open to the rest of society.The trick is that STS practitioners employ methods that enable them tofathom both the “inner workings” and the “outer character” of sciencewithout having to be expert in the fields they study. The success of sucha practice bodes well for extending science's sphere of accountability,presumably toward a greater democratization of the scientific decision-making process. These concerns are also shared by the assemblage ofpeople who travel under the rubric ofrhetoric of scienceand who teachoral and written skills in settings that range from general education totechnical communication (Fuller 2001b). The success ofPhilosophy,Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge (PREK), then, should be measured interms of its ability to persuade philosophers, theoretical humanists andsocial scientists, STS practitioners, and rhetoricians of science to seeeach other as engaged in a common enterprise.
