From Salamander to Servomechanism: For a Distinction Between Weak and Strong Coproductionism

Abstract

Coproductionism is a complex form of constructivism. While taking for granted that sciences and technologies are produced by a society in a historical moment, it also analyzes the influence of technosciences on society in a positive feedback loop. Nevertheless, there are some technosciences where this tight relationship between humans' approach to nature is less linked to their society, albeit it is never totally separated from it. What changes is the degree and the number of institutions that can take part to our several ways of reading nature. This paper's aim is to make explicit a sort of an ideal line with two extremes: On one end a strong coproductionism, where all or many societal institutions are involved, and on the other end a weak one, where not all the dimensions of a society are at stake. It is a distinction of degree, not of essence. When coproductionism scholars talk about "science", they seem to intend only those sciences where coproductionism is at its strong extreme. By doing this, they neglect other more weakly coproduced technosciences. Actor-Network Theory by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon, Marcel Mauss' concept of total social fact and Benjamin Whorf's thesis on language are the conceptual instruments to ground such a distinction.