Cosmopolitics I : I. the science wars II. the invention of mechanics III. thermodynamics

Isabelle Stengers’s sweeping work of philosophical inquiry builds on her previous intellectual accomplishments to explore the role of science in modern societies and to challenge its pretensions to objectivity, rationality, and truth. For Stengers, science is a constructive enterprise, a diverse, interdependent, and highly contingent system that does not simply discover preexisting truths but, through specific practices and processes, helps shape them.