This article analyzes the cognitive structures and dynamics of a form of scientific discipline that differs importantly both from the disciplinary format of the 19th-century university system, and from the profile proposed by much postmodern interdisciplinary (anti-disciplinary) discussion. This recent form of discipline, here termed the 'new disciplinarity', is a product of the increasing complexity of scientific knowledge and activity. The approach privileges cognition. It emphasizes the concepts of disciplinary referent, robust boundaries, 'borderland', combinatorials and projects. It suggests that the new disciplinarity is highly elastic and that it is a spawning-ground for new disciplines.
RésuméCet article analyse la structure cognitive et la dynamique des disciplines scientifiques et s'attache à montrer qu'elles diffèrent fortement du modèle des universités du 19ème siècle. Cette forme récente de discipline scientifique est désignée par le terme 'nouvelle disciplinarité'. Elle est un produit de la complexité croissante des connaissances et de l'activité scientifiques. L'approche adoptée ici privilégie les contenus cognitifs et constitue une réfutation de la perspective post-moderne sur la science et l'interdisciplinarité. Elle met l'accent sur les concepts de référent disciplinaire, de robustesse des frontières, de ' zone franche', de combinatoire et de projets. Elle suggère que la
This article is a contribution to the critical sociology of science perspective introduced and developed by Pierre Bourdieu. The paper proposes a transversalist theory of science and technology production and diffusion. It is here argued that science and technology are comprised of multiple regimes where each regime is historically grounded, possesses its own division of labour, modes of cognitive and artifact production and has specific audiences. The major regimes include the disciplinary regime, utilitarian regime, transitory regime and research-technology regime. Though each regime is autonomous, they are simultaneously closely interlaced. In science and technology, autonomy is not antithetical to interdependence and reciprocity. This study demonstrates for the four specified regimes of production and diffusion that differentiation is not contrary to interaction. In science, differentiation and interaction comprise two sides of the same coin. All regimes exhibit a measure of transversality.
The Feynman Nanotechnology Prize was established in 1993, and has been awarded annually since 1997, for theory and experimentation. On the basis of a series of interviews with Prize laureates, this article clarifies the principal theoretical and experimental questions at stake in nanoscale research, changes in methodological procedures, epistemological orientations and disciplinary foci. Nanobiology is emerging as a prominent discipline; simulation constitutes a cornerstone orientation; and the issue of control is to the fore in nanoscale research.
Résumé. Le prix Feynman en nanotechnologie a été institué en 1993 et attribué annuellement à partir de 1997, pour des travaux en théorie, et en expérimentation. Sur la base d'une série d'interviews de lauréats du prix Feynman, cet article montre les questions théoriques et expérimentales essentielles qui sont en jeu dans la recherche à l'échelle nanométrique, les transformations dans les méthodologies, les orientations épistémologiques et les champs disciplinaires spécifiques à ces recherches.Dans cette perspective, on remarque que la nanobiologie constitue une discipline émergente de premier plan, la simulation représente un domaine de recherche charnière et la question du contrôle est d'une importance centrale dans ces recherches.
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