Conceptualizing Technoscience in a Reasonable, Constructivist Way

Abstract

The text presents a specific, “reasonable” version of constructivism, widely inspired by Bruno Latour`s actornetwork theory and also other results of the so-called STS – science and technology studies. It pictures science and technology as both practically successful and historically institutionalized. The article shows that constructivist position turns out to be especially promising when we analyze the role of scientific discoveries and technological innovations in the globalized world. The border parameters of our reality (understood as institutional, symbolic and also material context) are constantly transformed on such a large scale that only dynamic and anti-essentialist theoretical frameworks is able to grasp these processes. Thus, a reasonably projected constructivism is a theoretical background convenient to face political problems of the risk society today.