I had argued with my supervisor last week. I intend to refer the 《 New Production of Knowledge》 and Concept of mode 2 to be the background of transdisciplinary research in Taiwanese new institution.
My opinion is that"Kuhnian science study is too much internal discussion in Physics(or natural science)" and Latour's ANT is too much deconstruction(Anything can be part of programme in science action) I used Mode 2 to harmonize the Kuhnian and Latour, for building a contemporary science study(science with transdisciplinarity and accountability).
My supervisor response with that "Latour's ANT could deal with any programme that you want through adjust the scale of your method and object. Why you insist to adopt conecpt of Mode 2"
According my supervisor's idea, Mode 2 can be a subsystem of Latour's ANT. I don't agree with him but haven't a good point to response. Maybe my reading is too less to hold my position.
Can two concepts put in one category to compare?
Thank you if you read my question.
Well, what your supervisor suggests is certainly possible in a theoretical sense. However, the question is whether this helps. What theory you want to use depends on what you want to explain. I can see your point about Kuhn being useless for the understanding of transdisciplinary research, which is much more about "epistemic communities" in the sense of Haas (1992) or "hybrid communities" in the sense of van den Daele et al. (1977).
As for ANT, the main point is that it starts from a specific ontology that conceives of the social as being constructed by heterogeneous networks of humans and non-humans. Thus, its main points are (a) that the social is a product rather than a given phenomenon that needs definition and (b) that non-humans of all sorts need to be considered if one wants to understand the social. Personally, I agree with argument (b) but consider argument (a) unnecessary. There are other ways than ANT to appropriately integrate materiality in sociological accounts.
Point (a) gives you a very fundamental approach to studying social processes by understanding all of them as processes created by, and occuring in, heterogeneous networks. Of course it is possible to understand any transdisciplinary or 'mode 2' - research as composed of such networks. In this respect, I agree with your supervisor. However, I am not sure how this really helps answering any question about transdisciplinary research. Subsuming a phenomenon to a set of abstract concepts does not answer any question, it just re-tells the story in a different language.
Thus, using 'mode 2' or any other theoretical approch dealing with transdisciplinary research has the advantage of being much closer to the problem you want to address, although I am not at all sure about using Mode 2 to "harmonize" Kuhn and ANT. I don't like Mode 2 because it either refers to something that is not new at all (namely research in the context of applications) or to the very specific and limited pheonomenon of research dominated by the context of application (see e.g. Weingart 1997). In both cases, the suggestion that mode 1 is supplanted by mode 2 is empirically unfounded and extremely unlikely.
However, you can do interesting things with the thesis that in Mode 2 criteria of quality an relevance endemic to scientific community and to contexts of application overlap, and that the latter may dominate in the case of transdisciplinary research. This depends on the question you want to answer.
Haas, P. M. (1992). "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination." International Organization 46(1): 1-35.
Van den Daele, W., et al. (1977). The Political Direction of Scientific Development. The Social Production of Scientific Knowledge. E. Mendelsohn, P. Weingart and R. D. Whitley. Dordrecht, Reidel: 219-242.
Weingart, P. (1997). "From "Finalization" to "Mode 2": Old Wine in New Bottles?" Social Science Information 36(4): 591-613.
Thank you, Dr. Jochen Glaser
Your explanation is very helpful and patient.
I agree wtih you and Dr. Peter Weingart. The five characteristics which define the difference between Mode 2 and Mode 1 are not innovative. In addition, there are not many empirical analysis to point out that Mode 2 would replace Mode 1. But in Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons(2003), their purpose was as much to address the need to invent a new language of research. That's why both 《The New Production of Knowledge》 and 《Re-Thinking Science》 were written as reflective essays rather than as empirical studies. So I have tried to view every single research in action with frame of Mode 2 and Mode 1. (Actually I still adopt Latour's spirit to do my research, His ANT method is attractive to a naive graduated student like me.)
In my research context, I try to give an answer to avoid the flaw in 5 methods of Alvin Goldman's " Expert: Which Ones Should You Trust?"(Goldman. 2001). Also, I wish that my research can do pre-work for Harry Collins's "The Third Wave of Science Studies". (Harry Collins, Robert Evans. 2007)
If Department of Science and technology( in Taiwan context) could analysis every single research with 5 characteristics(Context of application, heterogenous, transdiciplinary, accountability, quality control) and make the analysis public, it would form a symmetrical agora when scientific or technological controversy shows up. Policymaker or laypeople would easier to put their credence on experts and empower people to question experts.
Respectfully, thank you again.
Goldman. Alvin. (2001). Experts: Which Ones Should You Believe: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: 85-110.
Harry Collins, Robert Evans. (2007). Rethinking Expertise: The University of Chicago Press.
Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons. (2003). Introduction: `Mode 2' Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge. Minerva: 179–194.
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