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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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