«آنچه ظاهرا علمیترین شیوه به نظر میآید اغلب غیر علمیترین شیوه است. علاوه بر این، آنچه میتوان انتظار داشت که صعلمش در علوم اجتماعی به دست آورد، با محدودیتهای قطعیای مواجه است. این بدان معناست که انتظار داشتن از صعلمش یا تبعیت تعمدی از اصول علمی بیش از آنچه روشهای علمی توان تحصیل آن را داشته باشد، میتواند عواقب اسفباری به بار آورد.»
Edinburgh School’s theory of natural rationality, enunciated to render symmetrical explanation plausible, thereby providing support for its relativism, is presented and evaluated. I have endeavoured to demonstrate that there are gross misinterpretations of Hesse’s theory of science, network model, and her conceptions of classification of objects and of universals; that Edinburgh School’s theory of natural rationality suffers from a considerable area of ignorance concerning its foundation. I have further shown that not only the theory is not descriptive of the actuality of people’s reasoning, but it in fact is normatively laden.
in examining Canguilhem’s Ideology and Retionality in the History of Life Sciences I intend to demonstrate that his epistemological reflections upon historiograhphical issues in the history of life sciences suffers heavily from: 1) a naive version of positivist verificationism: 2) his incorporation of the, otherwise superfluous, consept of scientific ideology proves highly problem-generating at best. Finally, his work of his fails to address any of the multi-dimensional issues of the contemporaneous epistemological debates centred around the concept of rationality, and the role it plays in scientific knowledge, anthropological researc and historical reconstruction of past episodes in any area.
Three different versions of the underdetermination thesis are identified in the later writings of the Edinburgh School by which its relativism is maintained. These I call the Stratagems UT, the Floating-feather UT, and the Oxygen UT. It is argued the marshalling of historiographical evidence to support the Floating-feather UT involves a version of the Liar’s paradox; that a variant of the Stratagems UT with the evidence provided by the Edinburgh School is internally inconsistent; that the Edinburgh School has failed to show the adequacy and the conformity of the historical evidence offered to support the Oxygen UT; that the Oxygen UT thoroughly neutralizes empirical evidence of any efficacy, and, thus, of any role, first, in the truth/falsity evaluation of the theory at the physical level, and second, in the explanation of theory-evaluation at the explanatory metaphysical or socio-historical level. I also show that Larry Laudan is quite mistaken in concurring with the Edinburgh School’s thesis of symmetrical explanation of theories insofar as their epistemic status is concerned.
The early writings of Barry Barnes, as the co-founder of the Edinburgh School of sociology of scientific knowledge, are explored to bring out and to evaluate his main presuppositions and arguments. Barnes is highly critical of anthropologists’ conception of scientific knowledge, rationality, truth, and their asymmetrical explanatory approach towards different belief-systems. Likewise he rejects the prevalent View of science among sociologists of knowledge, and also their approach to explanation of knowledge or belief-adoption. His proposal is based on a Kuhnian model of science, and offers his own socio-causal explanatory scheme applicable to all beliefs and knowledge-claims. I have challenged the basis of his model of science and have tried to show that his use of Kuhn’s concepts of normal practice and paradigm is problematic, and that his idea of social causation of beliefs is highly problematic.
