Science and the Arts in Ireland

Abstract

There is also a deeper edge to the revisionist debate with important implications for the sociology of knowledge and the existence of the nation; the very status of science itself. The revisionist argument is based heavily on the application of “scientific” concepts of objectivity and empirical data. As recent research on the history of science in Ireland indicates, such scientific ideas have a clear national, political bias (Brett, 1999; Bowler and Whyte, 1997; Foley and Ryder, 1998; Kearney, 1985; O‘Dowd, 1996). Such a bias also appears to support Durkheim‘s association of scientific knowledge with industrial relations and consciousness, thus furthering the relevance of a Durkheimian analysis of Ireland.