Some Issues in the Real Use of Science

Abstract

My comments are addressed to some issues in conceiving of the real and ideal uses of scientific knowledge. They derive from the practices found in the papers 1 was asked to review and from observations gathered throughout the meetings. As a short-hand device, the sense of the issues I raise derives from trying to keep together the internalist and externalist programs in the sociology of science. We wish to avoid both extremes of realism and idealism when conceiving of science. In the first case, scientific realism shuts out political idealism because its prescriptive realistic science excuses it from such concerns. In the latter case, scientific idealism is defeated by scientific practice and remains two removes from the ideal community of knowledge it is unable to institutionalize.