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This book is a history, analysis, and criticism of what the author calls "postmodern interpretations of science" (PIS) and the closely related "sociology of scientific knowledge" (SSK). This movement traces its origin to Thomas Kuhn's revolutionary work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), but is more extreme. It believes that science is a "social construction", having little to do with nature, and is determined by contextual forces such as the race, class, gender of the scientist, laboratory politics, or the needs of the military industrial complex.Since the 1970s, PIS has become fashionable in the humanities, social sciences, and ethnic or women's studies, as well as in the new academic discipline of Science, Technology, and Society (STS). It has been attacked by numerous authors and the resulting conflicts led to the so-called Science Wars of the 1990s. While the present book is also critical of PIS, it focuses on its intellectual and political origins and tries to understand why it became influential in the 1970s. The book is both an intellectual and a political history. It examines the thoughts of Karl Popper, Karl Mannheim, Ludwik Fleck, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, David Bloor, Steve Woolgar, Steve Shapin, Bruno Latour, and PIS-like doctrines in mathematics. It also describes various philosophical contributions to PIS ranging from the Greek sophists to 20th century post-structuralists and argues that the disturbed political atmosphere of the Vietnam War era was critical to the rise of PIS.

Brown has made a valuable contribution to the philosophy of mathematics with this book ... The book is decidedly even-handed, offering as close to an objective view of both sides as one could hope for in a single book ... Brown's analysis of the interplay of these issues with mathematical research is very well done, and commands careful analysis. All of this is crafted very skillfully. It is clear that Brown has a real talent for writing to a general audience, which is unfortunately rare among practicing research mathematicians. The book is well worth the purchase price. --Goodreads.com

R C Brown's book is a highly readable, somewhat polemical, yet overall carefully researched exposition of a school of thought which not only bears many of the hallmarks of an ideology, but as the Science Wars of the 1990s have demonstrated is also actively seeking political dominance in academia and possibly beyond. --Zentralblatt MATH