RÉSUMÉ: La pragmatique et la sémantique de l’historiographie révèlent une fragmentation croissante qui s’étend par-delà les écoles jusqu’aux historiens individuels. Alors que les scientifiques normalisent les données pour qu’elles s’ajustent aux théories, les historiens interprètent leurs théories, de manières incompatibles entre elles, pour qu’elles s’ajustent aux différents cas historiques. Les difficultés qui en découlent dans la communication historiographique remettent en cause les philosophies herméneutiques de l’historiographie et redonnent un nouvel intérêt à la question d’une historiographie scientifique. Mais les réponses existantes (...) sont philosophiquement obsolètes. Une façon de reformuler le problème est de partir de la complexité du chaos et de l’unicité de l’histoire. Seule la science peut évaluer si les propriétés d’un domaine donné en interdisent une approche scientifique. Or la science s’étend par réductions méthodologiques explicatives, en ramenant des propriétés d’événements complexes, chaotiques et uniques, qui sont familières, mais d’un niveau plus élevé, à des propriétés ou interrelations non familières et d’un niveau moins élevé. La culture disciplinaire de l’historiographie, cependant, empêche le développement par essais et erreurs de telles tentatives de réductions scientifiques, qui seules permettraient d’évaluer les possibilités d’une historiographie scientifique, laquelle, dans la situation présente, relève de la science-fiction. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is a study of the role of language in scientific activity. It recommends that language be viewed as a community's means of patterning its affairs. Language represents where the boundaries of the community are and who is entitled to speak within it, and it displays the structures of authority in the community. Moreover, language precipitates the community's view of what the world is like, such that linguistic usages can be taken as referring to that world. Thus, language (...) connects on the one side to a community's practical life, and, on the other, to the reality on which it “reports.”The example treated is Robert Boyle's view of the language proper for experimental practice, and his arguments against the value and legitimacy of mathematical representations within the experimental community. Boyle argued that the use of mathematics was inappropriate because (i) it would restrict the number of potential participants; (ii) it would give rise to unwarranted expectations of the certainty and accuracy to be expected of real physical inquiries; (iii) it would suggest views of natural law and God's relations with the natural world which were incorrect and possibly dangerous; and because (iv) the world upon which the experimentalist operated was not such as was represented by mathematical idealizations. I try to establish that decision about the appropriate language for the experimental community was a moral choice. (shrink)

Scientific communities as social groupings and the role that such communities play in scientific change and the production of scientific knowledge is currently under debate. I examine theory change as a complex social interaction among individual scientists and the scientific community, and argue that individuals will be motivated to adopt a more radical or innovative attitude when confronted with striking similarities between model systems and a more robust understanding of specialised vocabulary. Two case studies from the biological sciences, Barbara McClintock (...) and Stanley Prusiner, help motivate the idea that sharing of models and specialised vocabulary fill the gap between discovery and scientific change by promoting the dispersal of important information throughout the scientific community. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir algumas das teses centrais do físico teórico e epistemólogo John Michael Ziman relativas à dimensão social da ciência. Ziman sustenta que, para um melhor entendimento das mudanças ocorridas na prática científica contemporânea, sobretudo das consequências geradas nas últimas décadas pelo que ele denominou de "ciência pós-acadêmica", é necessária uma abordagem que inclua aspectos não somente filosóficos, mas também sociológicos e históricos. Segundo Ziman, a supervalorização, na ciência pós-acadêmica, de valores ligados a uma cultura gerencial (...) tem como consequências, a curto prazo, a alteração do éthos mertoniano e dos princípios filosóficos utilizados historicamente pelos cientistas como ideais reguladores; e, a longo prazo, a redução da capacidade cognitiva da ciência de produzir "novos mapas" da realidade. Ao analisar alguns conceitos-chave da obra de Ziman, tais como "consensibilidade", "consensualidade", "conhecimento público" e "ciência pós-acadêmica", esperamos debater a concepção de ciência desse autor, ainda pouco citado no Brasil. The main objective of this article is to discuss some of the central theses on the work of the physicist and epistemologist John Michael Ziman concerned with the social dimension of science. Ziman supports the thesis that in order to have a better understanding of the recent changes in scientific practice, especially the consequences brought by a new mode of knowledge production, in the last decades, which he names "post-academic", it is necessary a new methodological approach is necessary that includes, not only philosophical aspects, but also sociological and psychological ones. According to Ziman, one of the consequences of the overvaluation of a managerial culture in post academic science is, in the short term, the deflation of the Mertonian ethos and also of the philosophical principles which were historically shared amongst scientists as regulatory ideals; and in the long run, the major consequence of post-academic science would be the reduction of cognitive capacity of science to produce "new maps" of the world. By the analysis of some key-concepts in Ziman's work, such as "consensibility", "consensuality", "public knowledge" and "post-academic science", we aim to make the Brazilian reader acquainted with his conception of science. (shrink)

History is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the material and intellectual conditions of man; it inquires into the causes of those changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the life and mind of mankind.

The ArgumentA scientific work presupposes a body of texts that are a condition for its intelligibility. This paper shows that the study of intertextual reference — of the ways a text indicates its relation to other texts — provides a fruitful perspective in the study of science that deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. The paper examines intertextual reference in early nineteenth-century mathematics, first surveying a variety of mathematical texts in the period and then examining in detail W.R. (...) Hamilton's work on quaternions.Three questions are addressed: (1) What forms of intertextual reference are employed? (2) What is the range of intertextual reference? (3) What are the functions of intertextual reference? The answers to the first two questions provide an unexplored perspective on the institutional changes in science during the period. The transitional status of the period in the development of later professional science is reflected in the relative openness in the forms of intertextual reference employed and the range of texts to which reference was made. In virtue of these features the period is particularly fruitful in the study of the functions of intertextual reference. With some major qualifications, the paper defends a Mertonian view that intertextual reference needs to be understood in terms of the claim to intellectual property rights. (shrink)

Nietzsche thought at one point that predication originated through the misapplication of names for particulars to further particulars. I doubt myself that this is where the device came from, although one does occasionally encounter usage – such as ‘another Vietnam’ – that evidently does arise in this manner. However, his account of predication is a useful model for a more sophisticated device which we in fact deploy, namely, the intentional misdescription of one circumstance or another in the interests of expedited (...) inference, often via the misapplication of a predicate. I don’t believe that ‘… is a leaf’ is a systematic reapplication of the name of some ur-leaf, but just the other day, I told my gardener that the leaves were off the tree, and that she could come in and work on my pond. I was triggering an inference rule we both accept: that you schedule fall cleanup once the leaves are off the tree. Rather than describe the actual state of the tree , and then renegotiate the rule to match, it was simpler to work with the misdescriptions. My respondents recall that devices such as predication are flexible anyway; they conclude that there is no need to misapply them. Let me try to get you to think twice about the assumption that flexibility pre-empts misapplication. But as I proceed, bear in mind that my illustrations are not intended as an argument. Any given illustration can be read either as a misapplication of a description, or alternatively as a correct application of a predicate, whose use in context is controlled by, perhaps, the sort of techniques discussed by David Lewis …. (shrink)

The ArgumentScience consists in progress by innovation. Scientists, however, are committed to all kinds of traditions that persist or recur in society regardless of intellectual and institutional changes. Merton's thesis about the origins of the scientific revolution in seventeenth-century England offers a sociohistorical confirmation of this revisionist view: the emergence of a highly rational scientific method out of the religious-ethical sentiments of the English Puritans implies that scientific knowledge does indeed grow out of – and not really against – customary (...) modes of thought.In tracing the intellectual origins of this view back to the religious controversy between Protestants and Catholics, the essay demonstrates that the essential conflict between them with regard to natural science stemmed from their antagonistic conceptions of tradition and its function in the production of genuineknowledge– of religious as well as of natural affairs. Whereas the Protestants believed only in those truths that are immediately revealed by God to each man through his reason, the Catholics adhered to truths that are related to men or “made” by them through culture and history. (shrink)

Although Ludwik Fleck is today recognized as one of the pioneers of the historical sociology of science, his historical and epistemological writings, most of them dating from the 1930s, long remained practically unknown. They were rediscovered following the mention of Fleck's principal work, the monographGenesis and Development of a Scientific Fact(1935) in the preface of Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions(1962), and thanks to the efforts of W. Baldamus (1977) and his student T. Schnelle (1982) and of the editors of the (...) English translation of Fleck's book, R. K. Merton and T. J. Trenn. Fleck's work was studied by several scholars and was the subject of two meetings: “Colloquium Ludwik Fleck” (Hamburg, 1981) organized by L. Schaffer and T. Schnelle, and a symposium organized by R. S. Cohen (Berlin, 1984). Some of the papers presented at these meetings were published in Cohen and Schnelle 1986. Today, more than fifty years after the publication of his principal study, Fleck is on his way to becoming a “classic” of the sociology of science and of epistemology. (shrink)

Popper, Polanyi and Duncker represent the widely held position that theoretical and experimental scientific research are motivated by problems to which discoveries are solutions. According to the argument here, their views are unsupported and - in light of counter-instances, anomalous chance discoveries, and the force of curiosity - over-generalized.

(1995). Selection of organization at the social level: Obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions. World Futures: Vol. 45, The Quantum of Evolution, pp. 181-212.

Neither religion nor science is first of all a realm of pure ideas, even though religion-and-science discussions often assume that they are. I propose that a concept of embodied science is more adequate and that religion-and-science should center its attention on science as enabler for improving the world (SEIW). This idea of science is rooted in Jerome Ravetz's concept of industrialized science and Donna Haraway's technoscience. SEIW describes the sociocultural context of science in commercial, government, and university settings. The chief (...) focus of religion-and-science consequently takes into account five basic issues: (1) the kind of world we want, (2) liberating science, (3) human action and ethics, (4) religion and the world's possibilities, and (5) recovering myth. An underlying presupposition of the discussion is that understanding the world always involves as well an understanding of our being-in-the-world. (shrink)

An assessment of Joel Isaac’s recent, well-researched attempt to provide a context for the emergence of Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. That context consisted in the open space for cross-disciplinary projects between the natural and social sciences that existed at Harvard during the presidency of James Bryant Conant, from the early 1930s to the early 1950s. Isaac’s work at the Harvard archives adds interesting detail to a story whose general contours are already known. In particular, he reinforces the view (...) that the guiding intellectual presence of what Isaac dubs Harvard’s “interstitial academy” was the biochemist Lawrence Henderson, someone who was enamored of Vilfredo Pareto’s version of scientism and was materially supported by the Rockefeller Foundation’s interest in increasing worker productivity. Isaac fails to consider the normative implications of Henderson’s vision, which influenced Talcott Parsons even more deeply than Kuhn. Isaac’s book is read in light of this concern, which reveals a profound sense of what is required of the sort of future elite policy maker that Harvard hoped to train: namely, a systems-based orientation that is at the same time tolerant of considerable intrasystemic incommensurability. The epistemological and ethical aspects of this prescription are analyzed. (shrink)

Auguste Comte's doctrine of the three phases through which sciences pass (the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive) allows us to explain what John Stuart Mill was attempting in his magnum opus, the System of Logic: namely, to move the science of logic to its terminal and 'positive' stage. Both Mill's startling account of deduction and his unremarked solution to the Humean problem of induction eliminate the notions of necessity or force—in this case, the 'logical must'—characteristic of a science's metaphysical (...) stage. Mill's treatment had a further surprising payoff: his solution to the Problem of Necessity (what today we call the problem of determinism and freedom of the will). (shrink)

The ArugmentThis essay answers a single question: what was Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's curator of experiments, doing in his well-known 1665 work,Micrographia?Hooke was articulating a “universal cure of the mind” capable of bringing about a “reformation in Philosophy,” a change in philosophy's interpretive practices and organization. The work explicated the interpretive and political foundations for a community of optical instrument users coextensive with the struggling Royal Society. Standard observational practices would overcome the problem of using nonstandard instruments, while inherent (...) inrepresentation– the interpretive practice championed in the text – were important theological and political meanings. Hooke's kind of experimental philosophy undermined the claims made by “atheists” and “enthusiasts” – the enemies of the restored church and state – while also producing useful knowledge. Equally important, Hooke modeled the community described inMicrographiaupon the classicalres publica, but his community made important concessions to Restoration political realities, especially the growing role of commercial or transactional relationships. (shrink)

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

During the second half of the 20th century there has been both a burgeoning intellectual interest in business and management as a topic and an exponential growth in the formal study of business and management as an academic subject. Indeed by the end of the century it was estimated that worldwide there were 8,000 business schools and more than 13 million students of business and management. In addition, it was estimated that worldwide annual expenditure on university level business and management (...) education had reached US $15 billion. However, despite this there is a lack of clarity regarding both the scale and the nature of the influence that academic scholarship exerts over managers. Accordingly this research study has sought to investigate the appropriation of ideas, theories, concepts and models by management practitioners. The thesis has reviewed and evaluated the two most obvious, most established and most influential potential explanations. These were diffusion of innovations and fashion theory. It has been concluded that whilst both these potential explanations provided important insights, neither was able to provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation for this research study. Accordingly, a much broader range of pertinent scholarship was reviewed and evaluated. This included, but is not limited to, the scholarship that is associated with learning by adults. Although this additional scholarship provided a further range of potential explanations, the extent to which any of these would be found within the particular setting of management practitioners remained unclear. In addition, the literature review highlighted a number of unresolved debates regarding issues such as whether management was a science or an applied science; whether it was a craft or a profession; whether in reality there were fashionable trends in management practice or whether in fact such practices were remarkably stable; and whether management theoreticians, gurus and consultants actually exerted significant influence over management practitioners. The literature review also highlighted methodological concerns relating to the use of citation analysis as a proxy for primary information regarding managerial practice. Hence, this research is situated in a gap which is delineated by the unresolved issues that are associated with both diffusion theory and fashion theory; the applicability of the broader range of scholarship to a management setting; the unresolved debates within this field of interest and the need to obtain primary information relating to management practice, rather than being dependant upon citation analysis. The research study has utilised qualitative data and inductive reasoning to examine these matters and the overarching research philosophy has been that of realism. Ultimately, 39 semi-structured, recorded interviews were undertaken using the critical incident technique. Collectively these interviews lasted for 35 hours and obtained information relating to 160 critical incidents. The verbatim transcripts of the interviews totalled 350,000 words. A case study analysis of this data was undertaken to examine the decision making of the interviewees in relation to some of their most challenging managerial situations. This analysis concluded that for the ‘generality’ of these interviewees; theory played little, or no, overt part in their decision making. The data was also subjected to a content analysis using a bespoke compendium of 450 ‘terms’ that represented the development of theorising about management over the whole of the 20th century. This analysis concluded that the influence of the 20th century’s management theoreticians over these interviewees was weak. Finally, the possibility that any such influence might be a covert, rather than an overt; phenomenon was examined using both the insights of intertextuality and the framework analysis technique. This analysis demonstrated that the discourse, dialogue and language of these interviewees could be indexed to four domains; the theoretical; the conceptual; the tactical; and the practical. The intertextual indexing outcomes were corroborated both by substantial extracts from the verbatim interview transcripts and by three unrelated strands of scholarship. These were adaptive memory systems ; the realities of management and the role of concepts and conceptual thinking in nursing. On this basis it has been concluded that management can be characterised as a conceptual discipline; that in its essential nature management is at least as conceptual as it is either theoretical or practical; and that managers appropriate concepts and ideas, rather than theories and models per se. (shrink)