Experiments and their relation to rationality have been given attention by the protonates of the first approach, this point being mentioned by Knorr Cetina fairly early in the paper. However, this attention she points out suffers from the same dislocation of context and rationality. The logic of the experiments, the perimeters, and measures to ensure the correct outcome, all place the notion of rational conduct on accuracy. That is to carry out the experiment in all its validity was the burden of analysis within the rationality as resource approach. The experiment's connection to the thinking of the field, procedures of the lab, and the examined objects, all in question were not correlated with the same notion of rational choice and conduct as within the experiment itself. Knorr Cetina's paper rectified this disconnect and in that same order. By choosing two differing sciences Korr Cetina tease out differences in how each science 'sees' or makes sense of validity, the situational laboratory arrangements made for deploying said experiments, and how outcome knowledge is constituted and communicated within the field and amidst the researchers. Through the variations between the fields, Knorr Cetina shows just how much the context is filled with rational choices and actions that have direct barring on the nature of the outcome and the knowledge it communicates. Moreover, the variations reveal the uniqueness of reasoning particular to the procedures of the field. Knorr Cetina ends the paper by expounding upon the implications of these two outcomes on the larger fields philosophy and sociology of science.
Knorr Cetina's challenge to the limitations of the first approach though revisited throughout the paper is provided an alternative by her illustrating the aspects of the 'rational action as practiced' approach in the analysis of lab experiments in particle physics and molecular biology. However this analysis if first primed by her elaborating on the features of the said approach, in this key move made by Knorr Cetina is replacing the notion of the outcome has holding epistemic or rational value, with the that of having a sense of having a truth-finding objective. Now rationality is deployed to achieve an objective and thus can be traced in its method of deployment. With the move from value to objective, Knorr Cetina renders the lab space into a social argument, with actors and mechanisms working towards institutionalized function. However, she does not lose sight of the intricate complexity lab space nor the weight of the claim made by its outcomes. She manages this by bolstering the notion of the 'epistemic' thus placing knowledge creation and function front and center of all analysis. The subtler move made here is epistemology is less analogies to notions of rationality as mere idea's of knowledge was, a coupling solidified within the reason as resource approach. This separation followed by a connecting of rationality to context, a significate limitation of the former approach as elaborated by the author. The context was always seen to have an external influence on rational choices but was never insignificant in the internal situation of choosing. This is rectified through promoting the hollowed out notion of context to the operations of culture. The idea of culture encompasses action, though, and tradition, all bound by situation and intent. Thus the actions taken in the lab, with their goal of truth finding, are read through the lens of culture, binding reason to the contextual dissection and arrangements being made. The agenda here is to achieve a more compressive understanding of reasoning bound by its connection to situation and knowledge and not as an ideal operation.
Knorr Catena sets up two opposing approaches to reason and rationality, the first being reason as resources and the second being rational action as practiced. These approaches are expertly explored and analyzed by her but are not her own proposals, especially the first. Much of the set of the essay is spent on elaborating the over-emphasis of the first approach by scientists, economists, philosophers and sociologists all pursuing respective notions of rationality or knowledge, treating it value that achieved through proper conduct or operation. The point is that this approach 'sees' rationality embedded within the final outcome of and not within the enacted operations. The author here is free to make to challenging moves successively, the first being the negligence of the second approach by the same authorities, the second, correlating this negligence with the limitations of establishing a preference for the reason as resources approach.