What would a Bourdieuan sociology of scientific truth look like?

In his last lecture delivered at the College de France, Pierre Bourdieu criticizes relativist sociology of science for failing to capture the truly social logic of scientific practice and asserts that his argument of 30 years ago can still work as a corrective to the relativist sociology of science. However, Bourdieu's critics concur that his field theory of science is not only theoretically defunct but also empirically deficient. In this article, I do two things. First, after showing why, in Bourdieu's field theory of science, the distinction between the two explanatory categories deployed by the relativists dissolves, I argue that, contrary to the critics' claims, Bourdieu's field theory of science has the distinctively Bourdieuan elements that sharply distinguish it not only from the Mertonian/Habermasian idealistic view of science but also from that of relativist sociology of science. The second part of this article discusses a sociological study of scientific practice and indicates the way in which Bourdieu's theoretical arguments can be empirically substantiated.