Elaborating the notion of performativity
Résumé
There are several ways of describing the main theoretical and epistemological achievements of science and technology studies (STS). We can say, for example, that STS have made it possible to conceive of a third way between realism and relativism : science and techniques “explicitate” reality by constructing it and construct reality by “explicitating” it. This process of explanation maintains both the existence of a reality that resists, that doesn't do just anything, and the idea that this reality, engaged in various trials, can resist in various different ways ; in short, it is multiple, ambiguous and, why not, constructed or instituted, instated. To use Austin's vocabulary, one could also say that scientific statements – to take only them – are performative. Above all, this assertion would shield us from the temptation to contend that they are constative, that they try to describe and analyse a reality on which they will not intervene.
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