Research

Abstract

The knowledge acquired from a scientific training is indeed knowledge of nature; yet at the same time it is a system of conventions. This is true of verbal as much as of procedural knowledge: scientific concepts constitute systems of conventions. Moreover, these conventions do not determine the cognition of those who acquire them, or even of those ‘reasonable’ individuals who acquire them. Our sense of what is conventional derives from our communal cognitive activity, and not vice versa. Conventions are the products of cognitive processes involving contingent judgements and agreements, and are continued and developed through further cognitive processes of the same kind. It follows that to understand scientific research we must maintain at every point a deep curiosity about ourselves, as well as about the natural environment.