Rationality and The Disunity of The Sciences

Abstract

The canonical model of science as a unified body of universal, objective truth has now to be set againt a variety of studies locating science in historical, philosophical and sociological perspectives. Detailed analyses on the history of epistemology, on the cultural origins of science and on the practice of science reveal science as diverse, heterogeneous and disunited, taking a variety of different forms depending on the discipline, the location and the period in question (Dupré, 1993; Galison, 1996; Galison and Stump, 1996; Law, 1987; Rosenberg, 1994; Star, 1989). The unity, stability and cohesion of science which according to the standard realist/ rationalist view are due to its fidelity with a unified reality, are seen as social and historical accomplishments. Similarly the universality of science has been found to result from specific forms social organization in coordinating and transmitting scientific knowledge rather than its inherent truth. These alternative conceptions of the production of scientific knowledge raise crucial problems for our understanding of 'rationality', that is our capacity to choose critically between differing accounts of reality. By implication it also raises problems for the canonical model of mathematics as a paradigmatic cultural universal.