Karin Knorr-Cetina

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Karin Knorr-Cetina (also Karin Knorr Cetina ) (born July 19, 1944 in Graz , Austria ) is a sociologist and scientific theorist. She works primarily in the areas of the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of science and has significantly influenced the theoretical direction of praxeology . Knorr-Cetina was a professor at Bielefeld University until 2001 and then at the University of Konstanz before she retired in 2010.

Along with Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, she is one of the most influential authors of Laboratory Studies . In the empirical study " The Fabrication of Knowledge ", with which she became known, she uses anthropological and ethnographic methods to analyze laboratory work and research papers from a large scientific research center in the USA between October 1976 and October 1977.

She puts forward the thesis that scientific knowledge can in no way be adequately described as a cognitive process with certain methodological requirements, as attempted by critical rationalism . Rather, scientific knowledge must be described and understood as the result of a social and technical design and manufacturing process that largely depends on the resources available and the working conditions of the researchers - including naturalists. It also describes the process of standardization through which the scientific product (“research paper”) is produced from the various interactions in the laboratory.

She places particular emphasis on interaction within and beyond the working group. For the research and scientific work that she observed and described in laboratories , she coined the term “laboratory opportunism ”: According to this, scientific decisions and choices (“selections”) are primarily oriented towards opportunities (availability of equipment, career opportunities, Project funds, etc.), according to Knorr-Cetina, they do not correspond to the image of testing hypotheses as represented in classical theories of science (e.g. by Karl Raimund Popper ). Their results lead them to a radical criticism of the term “ scientific community ”.

Knorr-Cetina has been a member of the Leopoldina since 2004 . In 2005, the University of Lucerne awarded her an honorary doctorate. On September 30, 2016, she received the prize of the German Society for Sociology for outstanding scientific life's work. The laudation was given by Stefan Hirschauer .

Publications (selection)

  • The Manufacture of Knowledge. An Essay on the Constructivist and contextual Nature of Science , Pergamon Press, Oxford 1981
    • (German) The fabrication of knowledge. On the anthropology of natural science , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, extended new edition 2002
  • Epistemic Cultures. How the Sciences Make Knowledge , [1999], Harvard University Press Cambridge (Mass.) 2003
    • (German) cultures of knowledge. A comparison of scientific forms of knowledge , Frankfurt am Main 2002

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry by Karin Knorr-Cetina (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 15, 2016.
  2. ↑ Honorary doctorates from the Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences at the University of Lucerne. Retrieved May 15, 2019 .
  3. ↑ See http://www.soziologie.de/de/nc/aktuell/mektiven-archiv/aktuelles-singleview/archive/2016/09/12/article/dgs-preise-2016.html .
personal data
SURNAME Knorr-Cetina, Karin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knorr Cetina, Karin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian sociologist and scientific theorist
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz , Austria