Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory PDF
Preview Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory
ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY BARRY BARNES Volume 2 I~ ~~o~!~~n~~;up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 1974 This edition first published in 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY lO016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1974 Barry Barnes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN lO: 0-415-42029-6 (Set) ISBN lO: 0-415-47437-X (Volume 2) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42029-7 (Set) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-47437-5 (Volume 2) Publisher's Note The Publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The Publishers have made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. Barry Barnes SCientific knowledge and sociological theory Routledge & Kegan Paul London and Boston First published in 1974 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London EC4V 5EL and 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA Printed in Great Britain by Clarke, Doble & Brendan Ltd, Plymouth © Barry Barnes 1974 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism ISBN 0 7100 7961 3 (c) o 7100 7962 1 (p) Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-81994 Contents Preface vii 1 The diversity of beliefs about nature and the problem of explaining it 1 2 The sociologist and the concept of rationality 22 3 The culture of the natural sciences 45 4 Belief, action and determinism: the causal explanation of scientific change 69 5 'Internal' and 'external' factors in the history of science 99 6 Science and ideology 125 Epilogue 153 Notes 159 Bibliography 181 Author Index 189 Subject Index 191 Priface This is an essay in the sOciology of scientific knowledge written with the sociology of knowledge and culture, generally, very much in mind. As a sociological study it is unusual in that the form and content of scientific knowledge is the main concern and not its organization or distribution. There are, however, good reasons why this neglected subject should be of particular interest at the present time. After a long period of neglect we have seen a marked revival of interest in the sociology of knowledge. Moreover, in this revival, cautious, positivistic approaches to the study of belief systems have given way to more speculative and comparative work, which has assumed that the study of knowledge is of central importance in the development of sociological theory. This welcome change has been stimulated by anthropologists such as Mary Douglas and R. Horton, and by the growing influence of phenomenology and ethnomethod ology. It has generated a fascinating and important literature, which promises to lead to a fully general sociological understanding of knowledge as a whole. This literature does, however, tend to skirt around the question of what the world has to do with what is believed, and this is a question which must be answered, at least schematically, by a fully developed sociological theory of knowledge. Occasionally, existing work leaves the feeling that reality has nothing to do with what is socially constructed or negotiated to count as natural knowledge, but we may safely assume that this impression is an accidental by-product of over-enthusiastic sociological analYSis, and that sociologists as a whole would acknowledge that the world in some way constrains what it is believed to be. The question however remains: what is the nature of this constraint and how strong is it? viii Preface It is impossible to avoid this question when scientific knowledge is the subject of sociological study. Here. one is forced to examine very seriously how far beliefs can be represented as rational responses to reality, and how far this restricts the scope of the sociology of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is, of course, frequently cited by those who see the sociology of knowledge as, at best, a limited enter prise, and would have it called the sociology of belief. These critics remain largely unanswered: some sociologists tacitly accept their claims and avoid the consideration of science, assuming it must be different from other belief systems; others assume that science must fit sociological theories, but they are unable to see how, and con sequently avoid consideration of science also. Here is where the present study may have something of general significance to offer. Through actual consideration of scientific beliefs, and through an examination of how reality may constrain them, it will be shown that there is no need to restrict the scope of the sociology of knowledge. The important tenets of recent work in this area apply to the knowledge of natural science as well as elsewhere; those tenets which do not apply to science are generally inapplicable and deserve no place in the field in any case. Thus, the argument protects the flank of the sociology of knowledge against rationalistic criticism, and emphasizes its status as a fully general approach. Hopefully, however, it will do more than this, for it suggests that, instead of being avoided, scientific knowledge should be actively studied and reflected upon in the quest for a general sociological understanding of the nature of knowledge as a whole. A body of knowledge with so many unique features cannot be safely ignored in such an undertaking; after all. science is the most elaborated and systematized of all forms of knowledge, and the least anthropomorphic. Moreover, in many ways it is the easiest of all forms of knowledge to study. It is accessible and, for the most part, unconstrained by norms of secrecy and restricted access; it is remarkably well defined and bounded by those who transmit it; and its history is well documented and can be studied more reliably than that of an oral tradition. Scientific knowledge should be one of the most valuable resources in the sociologist's attempt to understand natural knowledge and its variation, not one of the greatest obstacles. It should be emphasized that the discussion is centred upon the sociologist's concern to understand and explain beliefs about nature and their variation. It does not seek to advocate or to criticize the Preface ix beliefs discussed, nor is it concerned with their justification. (The reader is asked to overlook those harmless and readily identified slips from this ideal which I have not troubled to eliminate.) This point is stressed since, in the current intellectual milieu, simply to talk of science in other than reverential terms may be seen as criticism. Existing discussions of scientific beliefs tend either to assume their validity or to be demonstrations of it. The investigation of science as a phenomenon has been incompletely differentiated from its justification. As a result, it is now being realized by everyone concerned with the study of science that our present understanding of the nature of its knowledge is hopelessly conflated with ideas of what it ought to be, or 'must' be. Perhaps those outside sociology concerned to change this situation will find this essay of some interest, since, in a sense, it attempts to take science as it finds it. If this proved to be the case it would merely slightly offset an enormous debt. The material used here has been drawn from a number of different academic fields; so many indeed that, given the present organization of academic knowledge, the work stands in danger of being condemned as specialized. I have, however, striven to minimize the resulting problems, and to make the main text readily intelligible to sociologists and reasonably accessible to others. As a result, there will be those who find particular examples or illustrations intolerably oversimplified, but the dilemma involved here will be clear enough. With regard to terminology, only sociological concepts are left unelaborated, and these are not used so extensively as to present insuperable difficulties to readers from outside the discipline. It should be noted, however, that the term 'knowledge' is used throughout with the sense of 'accepted belief', not with the sense of 'correct belief'. Turning to more particular debts, it is a pleasure to thank all the colleagues and friends, in Edinburgh and elsewhere, who have com mented upon and criticized various aspects of the argument. Par ticular acknowledgment is due to Donald MacKenzie of the Science Studies Unit here, who read the manuscript and made a number of particular criticisms and suggestions which were incorporated into the text. Indubitably, however, it is my colleague David Bloor to whom my greatest thanks are due. I have been grateful for his criticisms of the manuscript, but his influence upon it has been much more profound, since my thinking upon this subject has taken shape during innumerable informal discussions with him. Respon-
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