Turning Around Politics

Abstract

The criticism levelled by Gerard de Vries against the political theory implicit in science studies offers a good occasion to render more precise the different meanings the word politics may have in the literature on the politics of science . It is certainly time to use the same methods that have modified the theory of science so much, on the practice of politics. The commentary on de Vries's paper offers just such a clarification by distinguishing five successive meanings of the adjective political .