THE POLITICS OF SYMMETRY

While symmetry and impartiality have become ruling principles in S&TS, defining its core ideal of a 'value-free relativism', their philosoph ical anchorage has attracted much less discussion than the issue or:ho w far their jurisdiction can be extended or generalized. This paper se eks to argue that symmetry and agnosticism unwarrantably present as ge neralizable procedure what are in fact contingent knowledge-political attempts to reposition various fields of controversy. They present a m ethodological version of what remains a rather exceptional case in a l arger class of 'third positions: which define various types of situate d distance and various mixtures of detachment and involvement An inspe ction of influential symmetrical 'translations' of the dispute between Hobbes and Boyle, and of recent 'epistemological chicken' and 'captur ing' debates, reveals some of the epistemological and political hazard s which afflict S&TS's convulsive forward push of the 'symmetry fronti er' Given such perils, a case is made for 'weak asymmetry' with regard to the issues of truth vs error, science vs politics, and culture vs nature.