Norms, “Ideology”, and the Move against “Functionalist” Sociology September 4, 2011
Posted by Will Thomas in Ideology of Science.Tags: Clifford Geertz, Daniel Greenberg, David Beardslee, Donald O'Dowd, Geoffrey Cantor, George Daniels, Harry Collins, Ian Mitroff, John Tyndall, Lorraine Daston, Margaret Mead, Michael Mulkay, Rhoda Metraux, Robert K. Merton, Roger Cooter, Roger Smith, Ronald Tobey, Steven Shapin, Thomas Gieryn, Thomas Kuhn, West Churchman
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The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) critique of the Mertonian program to define a “normative structure of science” centered around the complaint that, by focusing on the social conditions that fostered scientific rationality, nothing was said about the sociology of knowledge-producing processes in everyday scientific work. It seems to me that SSK strategies like “methodological relativism”, and Steven Shapin’s embrace of “middle-range” historico-sociological theories, might ultimately have resulted in additions to, and a reconciliation with, the original Mertonian framework.
However, at the same time, another critique questioned the basic validity of that framework. This critique shared the SSK critique’s interest in describing actual scientific work, but, like Mertonian sociology, it focused on scientists’ and others’ sense of the essence of scientific culture without directly addressing knowledge-production processes. This critique held that, because “functionalist” ideal-type systems of scientific behavior could not actually be found in their pure form, such systems did not meaningfully exist. Legitimate sociology had to be obtained inductively from the empirical record, as studied by historians and ethnologists.
A key work here is: Michael Mulkay, “Norms and Ideology in Science,” Social Science Information 15 (1976): 637-656.
