On the Alleged Distinction Between Discourse and Praxis

Abstract

Recent criticisms of work in the social study of science depend upon a misconception of the strategic theoretical significance of the notion of `discourse'. This arises because the earlier continental sense of `discourse' has been `anglicized'. The constitutive epistemology of French post-structuralism, which presumes a congruence between discourse and praxis, has been neglected in favour of the realist concerns of empirical research in the Anglo-Saxon social study of science.