"For the half a century since he decided to pursue his career in the then young academic discipline of philosophy and history of science, Yoichiro Murakami has undoubtedly been one of the opinion leaders in Japan in the broad area concerned about science" wrote Yasushi Kakihara and Shigeo Kato, editors of the book Murakami Yoichiro no kagaku-ron: Hihan to outou (Yoichiro Murakami's Science Studies: Critiques and Response), in the introduction (3).' At the beginning of the 1960s Murakami started his career as a philosopher and historian of science, but his work since the 1990s is more sociological in its style and approach. From this perspective, while the book focuses on the work of this individual scholar, it also
