Abstract
This paper attempts to outline the process and significance of a shift from a positivist to a social and historical understanding of science. From the viewpoint of an adherent to the new perspective, the positivist model appears as an external, philosophers’ image of what is natural science, one which takes at face value what its spokesmen, and to a lesser degree what its practitioners say it is. To identify this line of externally addressed philosophy of science and internalist intellectual history, I would mention Bacon, Sarton, Cohen, Popper and the logical positivists generally. Even recent and formidable sociologists of science (Merton, Ben-David) share key elements of the positivist assumption, that positivism is an accurate reflection of scientific practice and that science is intellectually and internally self-determined (autonomous).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes and References
Juan E. Corradi, Textures: Approaching Society, Ideology and Literature’, Occasional Papers No. 19. Ibero-American Language and Area Center, New York University, New York, N.Y., March, 1976.
Joseph Ben-David, ‘Is there a Sociology of Knowledge?’ Working Paper No. 136, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Chicago, mimeo, 1969; The Scientist’s Role in Society, A Comparative Study, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971, pp. 7–11.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, New York: Harper & Row, 2nd ed., 1964, p.x.
4.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, New York: Harper & Row, 2nd ed., 1964, p.x.
Ibid., p.x.
M. J. Mulkay, ‘Three Models of Scientific Development’, The Sociological Review 23, 3. August, 1975 pp 509–526
W. O. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1975, pp. 224–225.
Nicholas Mullins, ‘The Development of a Scientific Specialty: The Phage Group and the Origin of Molecular Biology’, Minerva 10, January, 1972, pp. 51–82.
Ian I. Mitroff, The Subjective Side of Science, Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, 1974.
Peter Buck, ‘Orientations Toward Occidental Knowledge: Comparative Perspectives on the Science Society of China, 1914–1937’, unpub. Ph.D. diss. Harvard University, 1972
‘Science, Revolution, and Imperialism: Current Chinese and Western Views of Scientific Development’, Proceedings of the XIV Congress of the History of Science, Tokyo, 1974
‘Order and Control: The Scientific Method in China and the United States’, Social Studies of Science 5, 1975, pp. 237–267
E. Mendelsohn, ‘Physical Models and Physiological Concepts: Explanation in Nineteenth Century Biology’, The British Journal for the History of Science 2, 7, 1965
‘Revolution and Reduction: The Sociology of Methodological and Philosophy Concerns in 19th Century Biology’, mimeo, January 1972
E. Mendelsohn and A. Thackray, (eds.) Science and Human Values, New York, N.Y.: Humanities Press, 1974
Lewis Feuer, Einstein and the Generations of Science, New York: Basic Books, 1974.
Ian I. 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, pp. 579–595.
Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973, p. 270.
Joseph Needham, ‘History and Human Values: A Chinese Perspective for World Science and Technology’, a paper given at the Canadian Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference, Montreal, Quebec, May 1975, p. 31.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 1970, p. 171.
R. K. Merton, The Sociology of Science; op. cit., 1973, Note 9, p. 273.
Roger G. Krohn, ‘Patterns of the Institutionalization of Research’, in S. A. Nagi and R.G.Corwin (eds.) Social Context of Research, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1972.
R. K. Merton, The Sociology of Knowledge; op. cit., p. 273.
Ian I. Mitroff, ‘Norms and Counternorms…’; op. cit.
Marcel Mauss, The Gift: forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, London: Cohen and West Ltd., 1954, pp. 37–40.
R. K. Merton, The Sociology of Science; op. cit. p. 276.
ibid., p. 216.
ibid., p. 278.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge; op. cit., p. X.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; op. cit., p. 94.
Ian I. Mitroff, ‘Norms and Counter-Norms’, op. cit., p. 592.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; op. cit., p. 77.
Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society, op. cit., ch. 7.
Friedrich Paulsen, The German University and University Study (translated by F. Thilly and W. Elang), New York: Longman-Green, 1906, pp. 50–61.
ibid., p. 53.
ibid., pp. 65–66.
J. D. Bernal, The Social Functions of Science, New York: Macmillan Co., 1939
Science in History, London: C.A. Watts & Co., 1954
B. Hessen, The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia’, in Science and the Crossroads, London, 1931; republished by Cass, 1975.
Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society; op. cit., pp. 158ff.
For example see: Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times: A Report of the Agribusiness Accountability Project on the Failure of America’s Land Grant College Complex, Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1973
Andre Mayer and Jean Mayer, ‘Agriculture, the Island Empire’, Daedalus 103, 1974, p. 3.
Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society; op. cit., 1971
Note 2. Gerald Gordon, ‘Freedom, Visibility, and Scientific Innovation’, American Journal of Sociology 70, 1966, pp. 195–204.
I was first drawn to this interpretation by a study of the sociological classics, especially A. Smith, St. Simon, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Each can be seen to have devoted his working life to a single major national or European social problem of his time. But this is the topic of another paper.
Peter Buck, ‘Science, Revolution, and Imperialism’, op. cit., 1974
Note 7. Science for the People, a periodical, Boston, Mass., 1970 and forward.
Rene Dubos, So Human An Animal, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968.
The Society for Freedom in Science strongly articulated this faith in response to Bernal’s position below: See The Society for Freedom in Sciences, Its Origins, Objects, and Constitution, Oxford, England: Potter Press, 2nd Ed., 1953, and Society for Freedom in Science, Occasional Pamphlets, Nos. 1–13. 1945–1952.
J. D. Bernai, The Social Functions of Science; op, cit., 1939, Note 28.
Gerald Gordon, ‘Freedom, Visibility, and Scientific Innovation’, op. cit., 1966, Note 31, pp. 195–204
‘Preconceptions and Reconceptions in the Administration of Science’, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Research Program Effectiveness, Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research, New York: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1965.
Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist’s Role in Society; op. cit., 1971, Note 2. p. 57.
Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science; op. cit., 1973, Note 9, p. 366. (first published in 1961.)
ibid., p. 368.
T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; op. cit., 1970, Note 11.
M.J.Mulkay, ‘Three Models of Scientific Development’, op. cit., 1975, Note 5, p. 521
and Diana Crane, Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.
The Oxford Universal Dictionary (ed. by C. T. Onions), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 3rd ed., 1955.
S. W. Woolgar, ‘Writing an Intellectual History of Scientific Development: the Use of Discovery Accounts’, Social Studies of Science 6, 1976, pp. 395–422.
ibid., p. 32.
The Oxford Universal Dictionary; op. cit.
See for example L. Sklair, Organized Knowledge, A Sociological View of Science and Technology, London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973
S. Blume, Towards a Political Sociology of Science, New York: The Free Press, 1974
J. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
See for example, M. J. Mulkay et al., ‘Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science’, Sociology 9, May 1975, p. 2
Ian I. Mitroff, The Subjective Side of Science-, op. cit., 1974, Note 6.
J. D. Watson, The Double Helix, New York: Athenaeum Publishers, 1968.
ibid., p. ix.
ibid., p. 208.
Robert Olby, The Path to the Double Helix, Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1974
Anne Sayre, Rosalind Franklin and DNA, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975.
James D. Watson, The Double Helix; op. cit., 1968, Note 48, p. 208.
ibid., p. 111.
ibid., p. 208.
ibid., pp. 100–101.
ibid., p. 121.
ibid., p. 22.
ibid., p. 33.
ibid., pp. 36–38.
Anne Sayre, Rosalind Franklin and DNA; op. cit., pp. 125–128.
James D. Watson, The Double Helix; op. cit., 1968, Note 48, pp. 51–52.
ibid., p 181.
ibid., pp. 190ff.
ibid., p. 194.
ibid., p. 51.
ibid., p. 196.
ibid., p. 94.
ibid., pp. 126–128.
Thanks to the suggestion of Peter Buck, and for several other unfootnoted suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1977 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Krohn, R.G. (1977). Scientific Ideology and Scientific Process: The Natural History of a Conceptual Shift . 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_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1186-0_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-0776-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-1186-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive