Technoscience and technology assessment

摘要

The term technoscience emphasises the convergence of the scientific and the technological realms within a new paradigm of technoscience. After the term was initially coined by the Belgian philosopher Gilbert Hottois in the late 1970s (cp. Hottois 1984), it was re-introduced by Bruno Latour (1987) and Donna Haraway (e.g., 1997), who have elaborated on the specific relationship between natural and artificial objects or, more broadly, between nature and culture. In discussing technoscience, both authors not only point to the ontological differences between what they call technoscience and normal science (referring to the relationship of the epistemic realm of science to the constructionist approach of technology), they also focus on the cultural and material dimension, especially in the everyday perceptions and practices prevalent within science or, more generally, Western society. Durine the nast decade, an increasing number of scholars in science and