To paraphrase Marx, sociologists have only interpreted science; the point is to improve it. __The Rational and the Social__ attempts both. It begins by sketching recent sociological approaches to science, notably the strong programme – Bloor’s ‘science of science’ and Barnes’s ‘finitism’ – and that of the ‘anthropologists in the lab’, Collins and Latour and Woolgar. The author argues that although sociological accounts are valuable in many respects, when morals are drawn about the structure and epistemology of science, they are badly flawed. In rejecting the sociological theory of science, it is not necessary to conclude that science develops without reference to the social. James Robert Brown argues for an alternative account. He proposes a novel way of viewing the history of science as a source of evidence for how to do good science and argues that the most important aspect of methodology is that it is comparative. Rival theories are evaluated by comparison and the contribution of the social to this process is inevitable and should be acknowledged. This is the challenge to science.

lgli/Rational and the Social (RLE Social Theory), The - James Robert Brown.epub

lgrsnf/Rational and the Social (RLE Social Theory), The - James Robert Brown.epub

zlib/Society, Politics & Philosophy/Social Sciences/James Robert Brown/The Rational and the Social (RLE Social Theory): How to Understand Science in a Social World_24595719.epub

Brown, James Robert

Ashgate Publishing Limited

Taylor & Francis Group

Taylor & Francis Ltd

Gower Publishing Ltd

Taylor and Francis

Routledge Library Editions : Social Theory, Oxfordshire, England, 2015

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Routledge library editions, Hoboken, 2014

{"isbns":["1317651308","9781317651307"],"last_page":212,"publisher":"Routledge"}

2023-03-07