Sergio Sismondo

Sergio Sismondo
Queen's University, Canada

Authored Books
An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies. Blackwell, 2004 (translated into: Chinese, simplified characters, 2007, Chinese, complex characters, 2008, translated into Estonian 2008, Japanese translation in progress; 2nd English edition forthcoming 2009)

The Art of Science (Boris Castel and Sergio Sismondo). Broadview Press, 2003 (translated into Korean, 2006)

Science without Myth: On Constructions, Reality and Social Knowledge. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996.

Current Research

General Science & Technology Studies (STS)
Most of my research explores the philosophical consequences of seeing science as a thoroughly social activity. Historical and sociological work on the practice of science should affect our views of a diverse set of issues in the philosophy of science, from the realism/anti-realism debate to the scope of standpoint epistemologies. For this reason I try to be aware of very general issues and trends in the field of STS. See my
Introduction to Science and Technology Studies.

Pharmaceutical Knowledge
Drug companies provide pathways on which information flows, and energy to make it flow. Through bottlenecks and around curves, new knowledge is created, and given shape by the channels it traverses. My project is a case study in the political economy of knowledge, of the production and distribution of knowledge. See
PharmaStudies.org.


Deflationary Philosophy of Science
I combine a down-to-earth or deflationary approach that focuses on ordinary scientific work, while insisting that we can draw philosophical lessons from that work. I argue that by adopting a deflationary attitude we can understand how realism, instrumentalism, and constructivism can all be right about science.