Towards a general sociology of science

Ian Jarvie

pp. 367-388

in: Nimrod Bar Am, Stefano Gattei (eds), Encouraging openness, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Despite the sweeping title of this essay, which suggests a descriptive, even ethnographic survey of science, its aim is more modest. I offer at most a sketch that is free from three faults, three philosophical assumptions and conclusions that much received sociology of science takes for granted. The first is the assumption that science stands in some special place of authority in the contemporary social order and, authority being a social construction, that both explains it and obliges us to accept it. Although the sociology of science should explain the authority of science, uncritical endorsement of authority is a recipe for stagnation. The second assumption is that there is no social reason to distinguish science from technology. Muddled as the two are in the public and the official mind, the sociology of science should present them as differing in aim and in social structure. The third assumption is that socio-economic factors are sufficient to explain the growth of scientific knowledge. Suffice it to say, I concede that research is not as immune to the influence of these factors as the classical thinkers of the Enlightenment Movement assumed.