Abstract
The ontological and sociological corollaries of epistemological stances have recently been emphasised by Bhaskar in his critique of phenomenalism (1). Views as to the nature of scientific knowledge, he points out, involve certain assumptions about the nature of the world and the nature of a society which produces that knowledge. While logically necessary connections between ontological, epistemological and sociological commitments such as those traced by Bhaskar need not occur empirically, in the sense that particular groups adhere to a logically coherent set of beliefs, there are certain combinations of commitments, types of knowledge and patterns of social organisation which are more empirically likely than alternative combinations. The institutionalisation of a particular theoretical ideal in the sciences has sociological consequences which affect the future production of knowledge. Furthermore, that institutionalisation itself occurs under particular social circumstances which might not be so favourable to alternative theoretical ideals. While, then, not being directly concerned with the mutual relations of aspects of philosophical doctrines and systems, a major focus of the sociology of the sciences should, I suggest, be to consider how particular social arrangements are consonant with particular theoretical ideals and lead to the production of particular types of knowledge.
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Notes and References
See Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, Leeds: Leeds Books, 1975, pp. 16–57.
This term is taken from Georgescu-Roegen’s discussion of ‘arithmomorphism’ and Harré’s analysis of the Newtonian general conceptual system. It refers to the belief that scientific knowledge is essentially arithmetic, i.e., its elements are “discretely distinct as a single number in relation to the infinity of all others”. Concepts which cannot be analysed in terms of simple arithmetic continua are not considered scientific in this view. See Georgescu-Roegen, N., The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 14
Georgescu-Roegen, N., The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 25–52
Harré, R., Matter and Method, London: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 8–58.
Bhaskar, op. cit., 1975, Note 1, pp. 64–126
cf. Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, pp. 25–59
cf. Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, pp. 114–139.
cf. Böhme, G., W. v. d. Daele and W. Krohn, ‘Finalisation in Science’, Social Science Information 15, 1976.
See also the application of the ‘finalisation thesis’ to the field of cancer research by Rainer Hohlfeld: Cognitive and Institutional Determinants Directing Science, the case of Biomedical Research’, paper presented at a PAREX-IAS meeting, Vienna, July, 1976.
For one expression of this belief see: Norbert Elias, The Sciences: towards a theory’, in R. D. Whitley (ed.), Social Processes of Scientific Development, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
See also: Richard Whitley, The Sociology of Scientific Work and the History of Scientific Developments’, in S. S. Blume (ed.), New Perspectives in the Sociology of Science, New York, and London: John Wiley, 1977.
Elias, op. cit., 1974, Note 3.
Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason’, Social Science Information 14, 1975, pp. 19–47.
cf. Pierre Bourdieu, op. cit., 1975, Note 4
J. R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 37–53. Collins has linked the development of professional and bureaucratic types of organisation in the sciences to differences in task uncertainty and co-ordination difficulties in an interesting way but does not consider how theoretical ideals can vary and affect these processes.
See: Collins, R., Conflict Sociology, London: Academic Press, 1975, pp. 506–523.
cf. e.g. Terence Johnson, Professions and Power, London, Macmillan, 1972
H. M. Vollmer and D. L. Mills (eds.), Professionalisation, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1966
J. A. Jackson (ed.), Professions and Professionalisation, Cambridge University Press, 1970. Krohn has developed a useful contrast between Intellectuals’ and professionals’ as careeer types in contemporary science and emphasised the historicity of present forms of organisation.
See Roger Krohn, The Social Shaping of Science, Westport, Conn, and London: Greenwood Press, 1971, pp. 153–161;
Bourdieu has distinguished cultural and social capital as well as economic capital. See Pierre Bourdieu and J.-C. Passeron, La reproduction: éléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1970, pp. 90–129
Bourdieu, P., Luc Boltanski and Monique de Saint Martin, ‘Les Stratégies de reconversion: les classes sociales et le système d’enseignement’, Social Science Information 12, 1973, pp. 61–113.
See also: Bourdieu, P., op. cit., 1975, Note 4.
As Bourdieu says, accumulated scientific resources increase the cost of entry to the competitive struggle, Bourdieu, op. cit., 1975, Note 4, p. 33.
Much of this paragraph is similar to Bourdieu’s views on science. However, he does not consider the nature of the sciences or their ideals in discussing scientific authority, Bourdieu, op. cit., 1975, Note 4.
Elias, op. cit., 1974, Note 3
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2
C. F. A. Pantin, The Relations Between the Sciences, Cambridge University Press, 1968, Ch. 1.
Jenkin has suggested that some of the influence of Mach’s phenomenalism on quantum physics may be due to its ‘success’ in assisting Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics to reinstate arithmomorphism and mechanics in thermodynamics. See Phyllis Jenkin, Structure and Contradiction in Scientific Development: the Case of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Entropy Law, unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Manchester University, 1975, pp. 11–22
Phyllis Jenkin, Structure and Contradiction in Scientific Development: the Case of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Entropy Law, unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Manchester University, 1975, pp. 100–109
See also Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, Chs. 5, 6, 7
P. Forman, ‘Weimar Culture, Causality and Quantum Theory, 1981–1927: adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a hostile intellectual environment’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 3, 1971.
Pantin, op. cit., 1968, Note 11, pp. 17–25.
ibid., p. 18.
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, p. 123.
Rom Harré, Matter and Method, London: Macmillan, 1964.
ibid., p. 97.
ibid., p. 112.
ibid., p. 17.
ibid., p. 13.
ibid., p. 35
see Alan Coddington ‘The Rationale of General Equilibrium Theory’, Economic Inquiry 13, 1975, pp. 539–558 for a detailed discussion of General Equilibrium Theory
also Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, passim for economics in general.
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, pp. 14–15
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, pp. 44–47.
ibid., p. 15.
A well known example in sociology is H. L. Zetterberg, On Theory and Verification in Sociology, Totowa, N. J.: Bedminster Press, 1963.
Trevor Pinch, ‘What Does a Proof Do If It Does Not Prove? A Study of the Social Conditions and Metaphysical Devisions Leading to David Bohm and John von Neumann failing to communicate in Quantum Physics’, in this volume, pp. 171–215.
cf. Böhme et al., op. cit., 1976, Note 2b.
Bhaskar, op. cit., 1975, Note 1, pp. 21–24.
Elias, op. cit., 1974, Note 3, p. 28.
idem.
ibid., p. 29.
cf. R. W. Gerard, ‘Hierarchy, Entitation and Levels’, in L. L. Whyte, A. G. Wilson and D. Wilson (eds.), Hierarchical Structures, New York: Elsevier, 1969, p. 225.
Gerard, op. cit., 1969, Note 31
Pantin, op. cit., 1968, Note 11.
Michael Ruse, The Philosophy of Biology, London: Hutchinson, 1973, p. 162.
cf. C. Lammers, ‘Mono- and Poly-Paradigmatic Developments in Natural and Social Sciences’, in R. D. Whitley (ed.), Social Processes of Scientific Development, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974
Herminio Martins, ‘The Kuhnian ‘Revolution’ and its Implications for Sociology’, in T. J. Nossiter, A. H. Hanson and Stein Rokkan (eds.), Imagination and Precision in the Social Sciences, London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, p. 115.
idem.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2nd ed., 1970, pp. 182–184.
For the role this notion played in the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen ‘paradox’, see C. A. Hooker, ‘The Nature of Quantum Mechanical Reality: Einstein versus Bohr’, in R. G. Colodny (ed), Paradigms and Paradoxes, the Philosophical Challenge of the Quantum Domain, Pittsburgh University Press, 1972
and Trevor Pinch, Hidden Variables, Impossibility Proofs and Paradoxes: a Sociological Study of Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Manchester University, 1976.
J. C. Gaston, Originality and Competition in Science, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974, pp. 62–66.
S. S. Blume, Toward a Political Sociology of Science, New York and London: John Wiley, 1974, pp. 193–214.
These types of competition are discussed in R. D. Whitley, ‘Konkurrenzformen Autonomie und Entwicklungsformen wissenschaftlicher Spezialgebiete’, in Nico Stehr and R. König (eds.), Wissenschaftssoziologie, Köln and Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975
R. D. Whitley, ‘Specialty Marginality and Types of Competition in the Sciences’, in P. Gleichmann, Johan Goudsblom and H. Korte (eds.), Human Configurations, Essays in Honour of Norbert Elias, Amsterdam, 1977.
W. O. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community, New York: Basic Books, 1965.
See Alan Bitz, ‘History, Division of Labour and the Information Process in Fundamental Particle Physics’ both in A. Bitz, Andrew McAlpine and R. D. Whitley, The Production, Flow and Use of Information in Different Sciences, London: British Library Report Series, 1975.
A. Bitz, ‘Scientific Research and the Information Process in a Nuclear Physics Laboratory’ both in A. Bitz, Andrew McAlpine and R. D. Whitley, The Production, Flow and Use of Information in Different Sciences, London: British Library Report Series, 1975.
Coddington, op. cit., 1975, Note 21, p. 548.
As Bitz has suggested, see A. Bitz, ‘History, Division of Labour and the Information Process in Fundamental Particle Physics’, in A. Bitz et al., op. cit., 1975, Note 43. A. Bitz, Andrew McAlpine and R. D. Whitley, The Production, Flow and Use of Information in Different Sciences, London: British Library Report Series, 1975
Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, pp. 97–113.
cf. C. S. Smith, ‘Structural Hierarchy in Inorganic Systems’, in L. L. Whyte, A. Wilson and D. Wilson (eds.), op. cit., 1969.
cf. e.g. L. Rosenfeld, ‘Physics and Metaphsics’, Nature, 181, 1958, p. 658.
Bondi and Gold attempted to derive their steady state theory of the universe which posits continuous creation of matter from what they considered to be incontrovertible philosophical doctrines. In contrast to Bohm’s 1952 paper, this attempt does not seem to have created much of a stir in the literature, outside a small circle in Cambridge and London, until Ryle’s experiments in the 1950’s claimed to disprove it. However, Dingle felt compelled to use his position as President of the Royal Astronomical Society to launch a vitriolic attack on the ‘new cosmology’ in 1953 which suggests Bondi and Gold had had some impact among astronomers. See: H. Bondi and T. Gold, ‘The Steady State Theory of the Expanding Universe, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 108, 1948, pp. 252–270
H. Dingle, ‘Science and Cosmology’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 113, 1953, pp. 393–407
J. Singh, Modern Cosmology, London: Penguin, 1970, pp. 192–218.
For a sociological analysis of the controversy over the steady state theory see: Ben Martin, The Development and Capitulation of Steady State Cosmology: a Sociological Study of Authority and Conflict in Science, unpublished M.Sc. diss., Manchester University, 1976.
Trevor Pinch has analysed the reception to Bohm’s 1952 paper and his subsequent work in some detail in his M.Sc. Thesis, see T. Pinch., op. cit., 1976, Note 38.
The authority of the formalisms in this dispute and some reasons for elite physicists becoming involved in the ‘hidden variables’ controversy are discussed in Pinch’s paper in the current volume. For some of Bohm’s own reconstructions see: D. Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957
and D. Bohm, ‘Science as Perception — Communication’, in Suppe, F., The Structure of Scientific Theories, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1974.
See also: Hooker, op. cit., 1972, Note 38.
Coddington, op. cit., 1975, Note 21.
Coddington, op. cit., 1975, Note 21, p. 552.
The original is in: Hahn, F., On the Notion of Equilibrium in Economics, Cambridge University Press, 1973.
cf. e.g. Elias, op. cit., 1974., Note 3
Gerard, op. cit., 1969, Note 31
Paul Weiss, ‘The Living System: Determinism Stratified’, in Arthur Koestler, and J. R. Smythies (eds.), Beyond Reductionism, London: Hutchinson, 1969
David Willer and Judith Wilier, Systematic Empiricism, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.
cf. A. Bitz, et al., op. cit., 1975, Note 43, passim.
These types of competition involve controversies over explanatory models and definitions of the central problem of specialties as well as over techniques and research practices, c.f. R. D. Whitley, op. cit., 1975, Note 41.
Five distinct components of scientific activities can be identified. These are: metaphysical, specialty concern, explanatory model, techniques and research practice. In any given activity, these components vary in their degree of clarity and coherence or integration. See: R. Whitley, ‘Components of Scientific Activities, Their Characteristics and Institutionalisation in Specialties and Research Areas’, in Karin Knorr, Hermann Strasser and H. G. Zilian (eds.), Determinants and Controls of Scientific Development, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975a.
cf. A. Coddington, ‘Positive Economics’, Canadian Journal of Economics 5, 1972, pp. 1–15;
M. Friedman, ‘The Methodology of Positive Economics’, in Essays in Positive Economics, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1953
P.D. McClelland, Causal Explanation and Model Building in History, Economics and the New Economic History, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975, pp. 117–145
S. Latsis, ‘Situational Determinism in Economies’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 23, 1972, pp. 207–245
F. Machlup, ‘Theories of the Firm: Marginalist, Behavioural, Managerial’, American Economic Review 57, 1967, pp. 1–33.
cf. Steven Rose, The Conscious Brain, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973
Weiss, op. cit., 1969, Note 53.
See, among others, D. Fleming, ‘Emigre Physicists and the Biological Revolution’, in D. Fleming and B. Bailyn (eds.), The Intellectual Migration, Harvard University Press, 1969.
cf. Harré, op. cit., 1964, Note 16, p. 35.
A. Hallam, A Revolution in the Earth Sciences, Oxford University, Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 103–114.
Elias, op. cit., 1974, Note 3
cf. Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., 1971, Note 2, appendix G.
See the comparison between the ‘analytical approach’ and the ‘numerical approach’ in constructing and evaluating models of tectonic plate motion in E. R. Oxburgh, ‘Plate Tectonics’, in I.G. Gass, P. J. Smith and R. C. L. Wilson (eds.), Understanding the Earth, Sussex: Artemis Press, 1972, especially pp. 273–285. Other articles in the same book also discuss qualitative problems of ‘fit’ and difficulties of assessing rival accounts.
In some biomedical laboratories we studied, project numbers had recently been instituted by the Medical Research Council in an attempt to monitor scientific work at a more specific level but most scientists had no idea what project they were supposed to be working on and some did not know project numbers existed. Such control procedures were often discussed as ‘accounting fictions’. For a discussion of how different types of science are related to organisational strategies see: R. D. Whitley, ‘Types of Science, Organisational Strategies and Patterns of Work in Research Laboratories in Different Scientific Fields’, paper presented to a PAREX-IAS meeting in Vienna, July, 1976.
cf. e.g. D. Crane, Invisible Colleges, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1972
M. J. Mulkay, The Social Process of Innovation, London: Macmillan, 1972
M. J. Mulkay, G. N. Gilbert and S. Woolgar, ‘Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science’, Sociology 9, 1975, pp. 187–203
N. Mullins, ‘The Development of a Scientific Specialty: the Phage Group and the Origins of Molecular Biology’, Minerva 10, 1972, pp. 51–82.
cf. N. Tinbergen, ‘Ethology’, in R. Harré (ed.), Scientific Thought, 1900–1960, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
Collins, op. cit., 1975, Note 5, p. 473.
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Whitley, R. (1977). Changes in the Social and Intellectual Organisation of the Sciences: Professionalisation and the Arithmetic Ideal . In: Mendelsohn, E., Weingart, P., Whitley, R. (eds) The Social Production of Scientific Knowledge. Sociology of the Sciences A Yearbook, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1186-0_7
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