کد مقاله | کد نشریه | سال انتشار | مقاله انگلیسی | نسخه تمام متن |
---|---|---|---|---|
1160779 | 1490365 | 2007 | 25 صفحه PDF | دانلود رایگان |
![عکس صفحه اول مقاله: Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge? Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge?](/preview/png/1160779.png)
Historians of science have frequently sought to exclude modern scientific knowledge from their narratives. Part I of this paper, published in the previous issue, cautioned against seeing more than a literary preference at work here. In particular, it was argued—contra advocates of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK)—that a commitment to epistemological relativism should not be seen as having straightforward historiographical consequences. Part II considers further SSK-inspired attempts to entangle the currently fashionable historiography with particular positions in the philosophy of science. None, I argue, is promising. David Bloor’s proposed alliance with scientific realism relies upon a mistaken view of contrastive explanation; Andrew Pickering’s appeal to instrumentalism is persuasive for particle physics but much less so for science as a whole; and Bruno Latour’s home-grown metaphysics is so bizarre that its compatibility with SSK is, if anything, a further blow to the latter’s plausibility.
Journal: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A - Volume 38, Issue 1, March 2007, Pages 185–209