Philosophies of Science and the Network Theory

Abstract

In what we have so far written we have attempted to describe how knowledge is built up, whether this be everyday, social scientific, or natural scientific in nature. In doing so we have built on three basic assumptions. It will be worthwhile to remind ourselves what these are. First, we have adopted a materialist stance. That is to say, we have assumed that there is a material world which makes itself known to us via what we have described as ‘perceptual lumpiness’. Second, we have made a psychological assumption about human beings — that they are capable of noticing similarities and associations between these perceptual lumps, and have a propensity to create economical classifications. And third, we have indicated (though we have yet to consider the matter in detail) that the forms taken by classification are influenced by social convention. Though our aim is a description of the generation of knowledge, our exploration of the implications of these three assumptions is in sharp disagreement with certain widespread accounts of the nature of scientific knowledge.