A High School Philosophy & Science Club

Session 4: Scientific Knowledge

July 8, 2026 · Bruno Latour & Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, chs. 1–3
After a brief map of the sociology of science (Merton, Bernal, the Edinburgh School's Strong Programme), the session worked through the opening of Latour and Woolgar's anthropological study of a laboratory: the lab as an inscription machine, the stripping away of modal qualifiers that turns a claim into a "fact," and the Guillemin–Schally race to determine the structure of TRF. The after-session assignment asked students to reflect on the final point raised in discussion: how the opinions of cognitive authorities may interfere with other scientists' research.