Abstract
The problem of demarcating science from non- or pseudo-science has serious ethical and political implications for science itself and, indeed, for all societies in which science is practised. The conflicts and controversies surrounding the views of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin or Lysenko make this abundantly clear. Sometimes these controversies involve what are generally regarded as non-scientific or political considerations. Examples of this are the banning of Copernicus’s theory by the Catholic Church, and the support of Lysenko’s position by the authorities in Russia in opposition to the neo-Darwinists. At other times, however, it is not the church, the state or the party that is involved in disputes about what is to be seen as science, but rather the scientific community itself. Much of the debate today concerning race and intelligence is regarded in some scientific circles as a debate concerning pseudo-scientific claims. The analyses and conclusions of those who claim a link between heredity and intelligence are viewed by some scientists as ‘pseudo-scientific’ and, consequently, these men are often defined as fakes, charlatans or pretenders by organised segments of the scientific community.
In science it is usual to make phenomena that allow of exact measurement into defining criteria for an expression; and then one is inclined to think that now the proper meaning has been found. Innumerable confusions have arisen this way. Ludwig Wittgenstein
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Paul K. Feyerabend, ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970) pp. 17–130.
Karl R. Popper, Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973) p. 106.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
Imre Lakatos, ‘History of Science and its Rational Reconstructions’, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8 (1971) p. 92.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972)
Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).
Ian Mitroff, The Subjective Side of Science (New York: Elsevier, 1974).
John Ziman, Public Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) p. 9.
Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963) p. 57.
Thomas S. Kuhn ‘Reflections on my Critics’, in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) pp. 237–8.
Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 2 (New York: Harper Torch-books, 1963) p. 212.
C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics, and People (ed. Irving Louis Horowitz) (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963) p. 427.
Karl R. Popper, ‘Autobiography’, in Paul A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper (La Salle, Ill.: The Library of Living Philosophers, 1974) p. 95.
Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1963) p. 554.
Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper & Row, 1965) p. 104.
Paul K. Feyerabend, ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970) p. 21.
R. G. A. Dolby, ‘The Sociology of Knowledge in Natural Science’, in Barry Barnes (ed.), Sociology of Science (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972) p. 316.
See G. Holton, Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Science (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1952).
G. Itlis, ‘The Leibnitzian-Newtonian Debates: Natural Philosophy and Social Psychology’, The British Journal for the History of Science 4 (1973) p. 343.
David L. Hull, Darwin and his Critics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973).
Johan Galtung, Theories and Methods of Social Research (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968) p. 459.
With regard to the survival of political theories, see Sheldon S. Wolin, ‘Paradigms and Political Theories’, in Preston King and B. C. Parekh (eds), Politics and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) pp. 125–52.
Ian L. Mitroff, The Subjective Side of Science (Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Publishing Company, 1974).
G. Kittel, W. D. Knight and M. A. Ruderman, The Berkeley Physics Course, vol. 1, Mechanics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962) p. 4.
Daniel Bell, The Reforming of General Education (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1968) p. 243.
A. R. Hall, quoted in E. McMullin (ed.), Galileo: Man of Science (New York: Basic Books, 1967) p. 70.
Alan F. Blum, ‘The Right Conduct of Sociology’, unpublished paper (1970).
Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971) p. 120.
Ch. Perelman, The Idea of Justice and the Problem of Argument (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).
Plato, The Collected Dialogues (ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns) (Princeton: University Press, 1969) Georgias 458e–459c.
John Fowles, The Aristos (London: Pan Books, 1968) p. 206.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, facsimile of first edition, with introduction by E. Mayr (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966) p. 1.
Quoted in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism (New York: Free Press, 1966) pp. 359–60.
Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1935) p. 1205.
Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as An Author (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962) p. 35.
Ian L. Mitroff, ‘Norms and Counter-Norms in a Select Group of the Apollo Moon Scientists: a Case Study of the Ambivalence of Scientists’, American Sociological Review 39 (1974) p. 587.
See for example S. E. Asch, ‘The Doctrine of Suggestion, Prestige and Imitation in Social Psychology’, Psychological Review 55 (1948) pp. 250–76.
Samuel Beckett, Three Novels (New York: Grove Press, 1948) p. 19.
Roland Barthes, ‘Authors and Writers’, New American Review 13 (1971) p. 136.
William H. Gass, ‘In Terms of the Toenail: Fiction and Figures of Life’, New American Review 10 (1970) pp. 55–6.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Random House, 1937) p. 194.
Quoted in John Hersey (ed.), The Writer’s Craft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974) p. 16
Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1897).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1977 Derek L. Phillips
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Phillips, D.L. (1977). The Demarcation Problem in Science. In: Wittgenstein and Scientific Knowledge. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03160-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03160-3_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-03162-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-03160-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)