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Role of Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance (view source)
Revision as of 03:57, 22 June 2017
, 03:57, 22 June 2017no edit summary
Ludwik Fleck was one of the first scholars to describe science not as a system of logical method evaluation, but as something rooted in social processes. Fleck makes no reference to “method” in the traditional sense, but attests that scientific facts are discovered rather than tested,[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] only insofar as permitted by the “thought-style” of a community, which is its manner of perception. In this way, the discovery of facts is a socially constrained process for Fleck, and furthermore, the advancement and refinement of facts is developed only as a series of misunderstandings between individual scientists, scientists and the public, and old and new generations of scientists.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] Thus, Fleck seems to claim that the acceptance of new “facts” is inherently a social process.
Thomas Kuhn attempted to address the threat to a static method from history. In ''Structure'' he notes that science from other time periods and other cultures seem to arrive at very different theories despite all being sufficiently “scientific” or rigorous, which can appear to be a social process. Kuhn proposed that between different communities, which are internally rational and consistent, revolutionary periods produce “incommensurable” ways of viewing the world. Moves from one incommensurable paradigm to another, says Kuhn, will be determined by socio-political factors, but science otherwise follows a method between two revolutions.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (19621962a)]]
David Bloor is known for advocating for the ''Strong Programme'' in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. This programme proposed that no form of rationality was beyond the realm of cultural influence and norms.[[CiteRef::Goldman and Blanchard (2016)]] Paul Forman wrote perhaps the seminal example from SSK, demonstrating that a link can be drawn between the anti-traditionalist and anti-rationalist culture of Weimar Germany, and the acceptance of a Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, for its seemingly mystic properties.[[CiteRef::Forman (1971)]] SSK purports that socio-political norms, across all times, are fundamental to theory evaluation and acceptance.[[CiteRef::Godfrey-Smith (2003)]]