THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

Our ignorance of some possible risks does not permit us to take known risks lightly; at least in this respect, institutionally speaking, it is not suf­ficient for us to criticize the existing institutionalized theory or even to offer an alternative to it.

Here we see that testing in pure science is rooted in the purpose of science, the scientific search for truth, but testing in applied science and in technology in general is rooted in the institution fostering competition; whatever is not prone to competition is taken on faith. Why does this ostrich policy succeed? This is a problem for pure science of a Darwinian stock.

All this may easily be tested as well as applied to cases of retention and replacement of frameworks which are intellectual and institutional at one and the same time. I shall offer only one case - which is not very interest­ing but which has enormous practical possibilities. I chose it in order to illustrate an additional point made in this chapter, namely, that research is mingled with very quasi-routine jobs that would hardly qualify as research.

Any project that can be performed on a budget of $ 10,000 can also be performed, with not much effort, on a budget of $5,000,000. The question is, what is the benefit of spending an excess of such a magnitude? Since, doubtlessly, such excess expenditures are commonplace, we cannot dis­miss this question as merely hypothetical. It is easy to analyze the situa­tion of excess expenditure in terms of bureaucracy - boards of directors, chairmen, fund-raisers, etc. etc. That the multitude and the bureaucrats are institutionally disposed towards the safe, which is, to use the language of the last Lord Chamberlain - the last British censor of stage and screen performances - one step behind the avant-garde and one step ahead of the crowed.

Let me stress that this analysis, though not so well known, is by no means original with me. Let me quote from Sponsored Research Policy of Colleges and Universities, A Report of the committee on Institutional Research Policy of the American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., 1954, Summary (pp. 76-77): “The large scale projects afforded by sponsored research have enabled young investigators to acquire research techniques which can be learned only by participation in organized team research.” As all techniques can be learned only by participation, the justification added to the explanation is true but pretentious. “Some of the sponsored research laboratories in universities have been superb training grounds for research engineers, providing them with actual re­search environment.” (See also there, pp. 44-45, and references there, for more details.)

Now, assuming all this to be true, then research grant committees are powerful educational influences, a kind of body deciding on curricula for top students who are so good they cannot afford posing as students. Now, doubtlessly, the committees which decide on grants have criteria - vague and inconsistent, but criteria - and these may be formulated, criticized, and improved upon.

So much for institutionalized modes of shaping new institutional theoretical frameworks; what I wish to stress, however, is that theories exist which do act as institutional frameworks. This, I think, is what Marx spoke about when he said that ideas become material when they take hold of the masses. To be precise, mass theories are traditions, whereas theo­ries upheld by intellectual leaderships are institutions, but I shall not enter here the fine distinction between traditions and institutions proper.

Popper’s philosophy comes to replace a philosophy which was in­stitutional for three centuries, and very successful it was. Popper’s theory can improve matters by making controversy more openly the order of the day, by cutting out dead wood and accretions. But it will be unrea­sonable to expect it to become the institutional theory prior to its corro­boration on a small scale in some pilot plants, such as workshops of science and technology. This is why philosophers are so hestitant to con­sider Popper’s opinions freely: they fear to deviate too much from the institutionalized opinion. If and when scientists and technologists in­stitutionally endorse Popperism, the philosophical fashion will follow suit all too quickly. Hence, Popper is mistaken in his efforts to dissuade people from their old fashioned theories merely by an intellectual appeal. It is more useful to try and create pilot plants, to work out wind-tunnels for ground tests prior to test-flights leading to institutionalized flights of the imagination. But there are different ways of institutionalizing a phi­losophy. In particular, it is easy to declare a philosophy acceptable by the public but only after incarcerating and sterilizing it and destroying all its possible social implications. I can hear the strains of the approaching band-wagon, and can only express my hope that when it passes by, not all philosophers of science will be adding their weight to the procession.

appendix: DUHEM’S instrumentalism and autonomism

Duhem argues against the theory that the aim of science is the discovery of theoretical truth: if this were so, he says, science would lose its auton­omy and be subjugated to metaphysics. In his view, however, science is not autonomous but subjugated to technology. By autonomy he means two things. First, autonomy as the independence of value; this indepen­dence is observable, for example, by the fact that scientists’ opinions are not divided by metaphysical opinion but are unanimous.

Al. Instrumentalism

Let me contrast autonomism with instrumentalism. The instrumentalism- autonomism contrast is often overlooked, as Popper has noticed, because a small word, ‘only’, may make all the difference between the two. Take aesthetics. That beauty may be used, say for political purposes, is doubt­less; that beauty is none but the achievement of smooth political efficiency, that smooth policitical efficiency is the sole aesthetic criterion, is a thesis which may be true but is certainly disputed. Generally, ‘x is useful for y’ is a matrix all too often applicable, whereas ‘x is merely useful for 7’ is a version of intrumentalism. Opposed to ‘x is only useful for y’ is x-auton- omism: ‘x serves its own purpose’. Ethics may be declared autonomous or in service of politics, and vice-versa. Ethics may stand in service of aesthetics and vice-versa, leading to aestheticism in ethics and to moralism in aesthetics respectively. Autonomism offers ethics its own purpose - the moral - aesthetics, its own purpose - the beautiful - politics, its own purpose - the just - science or perhaps metaphysics, its own purpose - the true. Funnily, there seems to be one field which, eo ipso, cannot be autonomous, i.e., technology. Or perhaps we may view control of our environment as the autonomous domain of technology, with the control of physical environment leading to physical technology, of social en­vironment to social technology, etc. Be that as it may, we all agree that truth or beauty or propriety or justice are not the ends of technology, that control is.

Duhem declares truth to be the end of metaphysics, and let us accept this. Accepting also control as the end of technology, we get into a small difficulty. Science becomes almost inevitably non-autonomous, and in­strumental either to technology or to metaphysics!

A.2.

Duhem says the search for truth is the domain of metaphysics, metaphysics is divided, and science is unanimous; therefore, science is not instrumental to metaphysics; hence it is autonomous; hence it is instrumental to tech­nology. The paralogisms are all very interesting. There is no unanimity in technology in some sense of unanimity, and some unanimity in meta­physics in another sense. Unanimity is a curious phenomenon, hard to pin down or even define. Duhem himself was engaged in a bitter controversy on electricity, which began with Ampdre and Faraday and ended with Ritz and Einstein; and he hated Einstein both scientifically and method­ologically. He declared the Einsteinian revolution too violent for science. Here science is dominated not only by technology but even by method­ology. Is methodology autonomous? Do we have unanimity in method­ology? What is the aim of methodology and is this aim its own or bor­rowed? These questions can barely be properly handled. Why does Duhem make so much of unanimity?

Duhem’s argument is staunch common-sense. Engineers are more in unanimity about engineering (no schools of engineering) than meta­physicians about metaphysics (metaphysical schools and dogmas abound); science is nearer to engineering in this respect; hence science is nearer to engineering than to metaphysics.

Therefore, Duhem’s argument has to be examined on common- sense grounds. For this, first and foremost we must rectify Duhem’s statement: not science is autonomous, but science is more akin to technology than to metaphysics, is his thesis. Second, unanimity is now not a virtue, as he claims, but merely an observed phenomenon (up to a point) which is used as a touchstone in the decision between the two masters - metaphysics and technology.

The common-sense criticism of Duhem, then, is this: in so far as there is unanimity in science, it may be viewed as the handmaid of technology, but when a dispute rages, even between the Ampere school of action-at- a-distance and the Faraday school of action-in-fields, science should be viewed as a handmaid to metaphysics.

A.3. Conclusion

This seems to be a compromise between Duhem’s instrumentalism and

traditional realism, between Duhem’s view of science as a handmaid of technology and the traditional view of science as the search for truth. But, as explained before, in any attempt at compromise, instrumentalism capitulates. Nobody denies that science also serves technology: Duhem’s thesis was that science only serves technology, and this thesis was denied. Now the compromise, science serves both technology and metaphysics, brings us back to the pre-Duhem in position - but with the added recogni­tion of the significance of controversy in science; perhaps also of the fact that scientific controversy is rooted in metaphysics.