Wittgenstein. Merton's sociology of science. The organized study of "science" as an epistemic practice and a knowledge product has taken at least three major forms in the past century: the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the sociology of science.
Philosophers have been primarily interested in the logic of scientific inquiry and the rational force of scientific knowledge. Historians have been interested in the circumstances, both external and internal, through which important periods of the growth of scientific knowledge have occurred -- the Newtonian revolution, the Darwinian revolution, the "discovery" of cold fusion (above). And sociologists have been interested in examining the norms and organizations through which "science" is practiced -- how young scientists are trained, how collaboration and competition work within a scientific discipline or a laboratory, how results are assessed and communicated. Nouvelles Philosophiques.
.Yochai Benkler. .Jacques Rancière. .Zizek. .Bertolt Brecht. .Lacan. .Christopher Hitchens. .Bourdieu. .Baudrillard.