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I'd like to offer an example of an alternative use of a social 
theory perspective in the history of the development of scientific 
knowledge which constitutes a rival & alternative to the various 
brands of SSK story-telling.  In the writing of intellectual history 
it is impossible not to make choice and judgments regarding the 
significance of various researchers and research efforts.  In focusing 
on Newton or even Descartes in telling the history of physics rather 
than some other figures we can't help but be making evaluations of the 
intellectual qualities of the figures involved and their work.  But 
a problem arises -- what to make of situations where folks vary in their 
efforts, e.g. modern-day creationists and the professional biologists, 
or Darwin and Agassiz?  An SSK story might tell the tail exclusively in 
terms of individual or class interests, motives, or general cultural views. 
There is no room here for judgments of intellectual merit or individual 
or social rationality.  By contrast, in the social account of science found 
in Kuhn, you do find room for judgments of intellectual standing and 
individual or social rationality.  (I discuss these issues at some length 
in my working paper "Science Without Planning:  The General Economy of 
Science" on the web at: http://members.aol.com/gregransom/scienceplan.htm). 
Specifically, Kuhn identifies scientific rationality with a specific 
social process and structure which provides the conditions for scientific 
advance.  Kuhn also identifies the conditions under which an individual 
can be identified as a scientist, and the conditions under which a 
scientist 
can and cannot be identified as irrational.  In a nutshell, Kuhn suggests 
that "No process essential to scientific development can be labelled 
'irrational'."  (see my working paper for the footnote).  Kuhn suggests 
also that the risks inherent in alternative theory development will be 
borne by the various members of a scientific community spontaneously as a 
direct result of the fact that individual scientists will vary in their 
judgments of the virtue and promise of rival scientific paradigms during 
periods of scientific crisis.  As I show in my working paper, the upshot 
of Kuhn's argument is that it must be considered scientifically rational 
for the members of a scientific community to display a diversity of theory 
choices during a period of crisis in science. 
 
The application of this insight for an historian of economics would appear 
to be quite straight-forward.  The strategy would be to identify periods 
in which the standard picture of theory is observably recognized to be 
riddled 
with anomalies -- in identifiable crisis.  As examples we might think of 
the anomalies identified in the classical British picture among German 
economists in the mid-1800's -- the picture of British economics generally 
recognized to be in crisis among German academics.  In this period, then, 
we can recognize diversity in theory choices among German-language 
economists, 
(e.g. Menger, Smoller, Weber, etc.) as part of a rational social process, 
and none of these scientists as irrational in persuing alternative 
frameworks. 
Similarly, in the current period, Clower and many others identify a period 
in which macroeconomic theory is racked with anomaly (R. Clower, "Economics 
as an Inductive Science", _Southern Economic Journal_, April, 1994, 804- 
814).  It is part of a rational scientific process, and contemporary 
economists cannot be identified as irrational, for present-day economists 
to be pursuing a variety of alternative frameworks in macroeconomics 
and monetary theory -- this is just what a period of crisis in a science 
calls for.  If we didn't find this in contemporary economics, we could 
identify the social process within economics as disfunctional, 
unscientific, 
not part of a rational scientific process -- i.e. no longer engaging in 
science. 
 
Greg Ransom 
Dept. of Philosophy 
UC-Riverside 
http://members.aol.com/gregransom/ransom.htm 
 
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