Contents
Chapter 8 – The Challenge from Sociology of Science............................................................................2
8.2 Robert Merton and the “Old” Sociology of Science......................................................................2
8.3 The Rise of the Strong Program....................................................................................................2
8.4 Leviathan and Latour....................................................................................................................3
Slides Lecture 8...................................................................................................................................4
Chapter 9 – Feminism and Science Studies............................................................................................7
9.1 “Science Is Politcal”......................................................................................................................7
9.2 The Man of Reason.......................................................................................................................7
9.3 The Case of Primatology...............................................................................................................8
9.4 Feminist Epistemology..................................................................................................................8
9.5 Science Studies, the Science Wars, and the Sokal Hoax...............................................................9
Slides Lecture 9...................................................................................................................................9
Chapter 10 – Naturalistc Philosophy in Theory and Practce...............................................................12
10.1 What Is Naturalism?.................................................................................................................12
10.2 Quine, Dewey, and Others........................................................................................................12
10.3 The Theory-Ladenness of Observaton.....................................................................................13
Chapter 11 – Naturalism and the Social Structure of Science...............................................................15
11.1 Science as a Process..................................................................................................................15
11.2 Kitcher and the Division of Scientic Labor...............................................................................15
11.3 Social Structure and Empiricism...............................................................................................16
Slides Lecture 10...............................................................................................................................16
Chapter 12 – Scientic Realism.............................................................................................................19
12.2 Approaching Scientic Realism.................................................................................................19
12.3 A Statement of Scientic Realism.............................................................................................19
Slides Lecture 11...............................................................................................................................19
Chapter 13 – Explanaton.....................................................................................................................22
Slides Lecture 12...............................................................................................................................22
Slides lecture 13...............................................................................................................................25
Important names, books and beliefs....................................................................................................27
Questons Final Exam...........................................................................................................................29
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,Chapter 8 – The Challenge from Sociology of Science
8.2 Robert Merton and the “Old” Sociology of Science
Sociology is the general study of human social structures. The sociology of science developed in the
middle of the twenteth century. The founder of the ield, and the central igure for many years, was
Robert Merton.
Mertonian sociology of science is basically mainstream sociology applied to the structure of science
and to its historical development. The norms of science are a set of basic values that govern scientic
communites. These norms aren
Universalism – the idea that the personal atributes and social background of a person
are irrelevant to the scientic value of the person’s ideas.
Communism – the common ownership of scientic ideas and results.
Disinterestedness – scientsts are supposed to act for the beneit of a common scientic
enterprise, rather than personal gain (questoned by Merton’s later ideas).
Organized skeptcism – a community-wide patern of challenging and testng ideas
instead of taking them on trust.
Another big idea of Merton is his account of the reward system in science. He claimed that the basic
currency for scientic reward is recogniton, especially recogniton for the first person to come up
with an idea. This would be the only property right recognized in science. Once an idea is published,
it becomes common scientic property, according to the norm of communism. In the best case, a
scientst is rewarded by having the idea named afer him. This reward system of science mostly
functons to encourage original thinking.
There are some exceptons to the general tendency; the most famous is the tremendously polite and
gentlemanly non-dispute between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. But the usual patern
when two scientsts hit on an idea around the same tme is to ight for priority.
The main deviant behaviors that resultn
Fraud – very rare
Plagiarism – somewhat less rare
Libel and slander – very common. A special formn accusaton of plagiarism.
For pedestrian workers who cannot hope to produce a world-shaking discovery, publicaton becomes
a substtute for real recogniton. However, recogniton even in a tny community of colleagues can be
a signiicant source of motvaton. Kuhn’s analysis of normal science recognized this fact.
8.3 The Rise of the Strong Program
The older work wanted to describe the social structure and social placement of science as a whole
but did not try to explain partcular scientfic beliefs in sociological terms. The newer approach has
tried to use sociological methods to explain why scientsts believe what they do, why they behave as
they do, and how scientic thinking and practce change over tme.
Newer sociology of science is also very interested in general norms, especially norms of
reasonableness. It embraced Kuhn, holism about testng, incommensurability, new ideas about
observaton, and various speculatve views about scientic language. These ideas make up a kind of
ant-positvist package.
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,The most famous project in this new form of sociology of science is the strong program in the
sociology of scientfic knowledge. A central idea of the strong program is the symmetry principle.
This principle holds that all forms of belief and behavior should be approached using the same kinds
of explanatons. The symmetry principle tells us that scientic beliefs are products of the same
general kinds of forces as other kinds of belief.
Beliefs are established and maintained in the community be the deployment of local norms of
argument and justicaton. The norms themselves may vary between communites, but the same
general principles apply.
The strong program also sought to analyze partcular scientic theories and their relaton to social
circumstances. The aim was to explain some scientic beliefs in terms of the politcal interest of
scientsts and their place within society.
Eugenics is the atempt to infuence human evoluton by encouraging some people to breed and
discouraging others from doing so. MacKenzie was assertng some kind of link between the
popularity of speciic scientic and mathematcal ideas on the one hand, and broader politcal factors
on the other.
The strong program is also ofen associated with relatvism. The forms of relatvism that are
important here concern standards of ratonality, evidence, and justicaton.
Problem of refeeivityn if all beliefs are to be explained in terms of the same kinds of social factors,
and no set of local norms can be judged “really” superior from an external standpoint, then what
about the theories found in sociology of science?
8.4 Leviathan and Latour
Leviathan and the Air Pomp discusses the rise of experimental science in 17 th-century England. The
book focuses on a dispute between Robert Boyle, a leader in the new experimental science, and
Thomas Hobbes, who is now mainly remembered as a politcal philosopher. The batle between
Boyle and Hobbes was over some speciic scientic issues and over the proper form for scientic
work and argumentaton. Boyle prevailed.
Boyle and his allies developed a new picture of what should be the subject of organized investgaton
and dispute, and how these disputes should be setled. Boyle sought to sharply distnguish the
public, cooperatve investgaton of experimental “maters of facts” from other kinds of work.
Proposing causal hypotheses about experimental results is always speculatve and should only be
done cautously. Theological and metaphysical issues should be kept entrely separate from
experimental work.
Boyle was not only setng up new ways of organizing work; he was also setng up new ways of
talkingn new ways of asking and answering questons, handling objectons, and reaching agreement.
His strategy was to replace questons that couldn’t be answered by other questons that could be the
topic of experimental work.
Shapin and Schafer present their view in terms taken from the philosophy of Ludwig Witgenstein.
Witgenstein’s early ideas about logic and language infuenced logical positvism. His later ideas were
very diferent and they had massive efect on late-20 th-century thought. These later ideas are an
atempt to show that philosophical problems arise from pathologies of language. Two of his ideas are
especially popularn
1. A form of life is something like a set of basic practces, behaviors, and values. It’s just the way
a group of people live.
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, 2. The concept of a language game, which is something like a patern of linguistc habits that
contribute to a form of life and make sense within it.
The logical positvist claimed that the right theory of meaning would show that all meaningful
language ever does is describe paterns in experience. According to Shapin and Schafer, Boyle was
setng up a new way of using language.
One problematc feature in the book is that they claim that Boyle and other scientsts are engaged in
the manufacture of facts, by which they mean that facts in general are made rather than found.
The Laboratory Life is a descripton of the lab’s work in discovering the chemical structure of a
hormone involved in the regulaton of human growth.
Latour and Woolgar ignored a lotn
The state of our knowledge of hormones.
The ways in which experimental methods in the ield are able to discriminate alternatve
chemical structures.
The new discovery ited into the rest of biology.
Instead, they looked at the lab in a sort of deliberately supericial and self-contained way. The lab
was a kind of machine where chemicals, small animals, and reams of blank paper came in and journal
artcles and technical reports came out. In between the two, a huge amount of processing went on.
Latour saw this processing as aimed at taking scientic claims and building structures of support
around them, so they would eventually be taken as facts. A key step in this process is hiding the
human work involved in turning something into a fact; to turn something into a fact is to make it look
like it is not a human product but is given directly by nature.
Latour’s approach is sometmes called the actor-network theory. Both society and nature are seen as
products, not causes of the setlement of scientic controversies. Latour sees scientic work itself as
the driver.
In Latour’s view, when we explain why one side succeeded and another failed in a scientic
controversy, we should never give the explanaton in terms of nature itself. Both sides will be
claiming that they are the ones in tune with the facts. But when one side wins, that side’s version of
the facts become immune to challenge. This inal step is described as a process in which facts are
created, or constructed, by scientic work.
What makes science run is negotaton, confict resoluton, hierarchies, power inequalites. There
seems to be no place in the picture for the responsiveness of scientic belief to the real structure of
the world being investgated.
Slides Lecture 8
Science is practced in a social conteet and governed by social norms.
Scientsts aren
People with politcal, social, religious values;
Employed by some insttuton;
Ofen work in a team;
Publish their result in journals edited by other scientsts;
Have to apply to funding bodies for grants.
The social aspect of science raises several questonsn
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