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Toward a Monistic Theory of Science the “Strong Programme” Reconsidered

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Toward a Monistic Theory of Science the “Strong Programme” Reconsidered 10.1177/0048393103252780PHILOSOPHYKempARTICLE / STRONG OF PROGRAMMETHE SOCIAL SCIENCES RECONSIDERED / September 2003 Toward a Monistic Theory of Science The “Strong Programme” Reconsidered STEPHEN KEMP University of Sussex This article considers the “Strong Programme” account of scientific knowledge from a fresh perspective. It argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the Strong Programme’s monistic intent, that is, its aim to unify considerations of instrumental adequacy and social interests in explanations of the development of scientific knowledge. Although sharing the judgment of many critics that the Strong Programme approach is flawed, the article diverges from standard criti- cisms by suggesting that the best alternative is not a dualistic framework but a more adequate monistic approach. Keywords: Strong Programme; interests; monism; finitism; classification 1. INTRODUCTION The Strong Programme (SP) analysis of scientific knowledge is generally acknowledged to have been a crucial inspiration for devel- opments in the sociological study of science over the past 25 years. David Bloor and Barry Barnes, sometimes in collaboration with Don- ald MacKenzie and Steven Shapin, rigorously argued that social fac- tors must be incorporated into any account of the dynamics of scien- tific knowledge. Crucially, they claimed that the commitments of scientists to specific beliefs cannot be explained without reference to social interests, even if those beliefs are judged to be rational or ade- quate. These arguments stimulated many responses, including sple- netic attacks (e.g., Slezak 1994), careful critical appraisals (e.g., Keat Received 1 November 2001 My thanks go to the British Academy for supporting me during the completion of this article through their Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme. Thanks also to Gillian Haddow, Gregor McLennan, Maureen O’Malley, Sharani Osborn, Irene Rafanell, and especially John Holmwood for their comments on this piece. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 33 No. 3, September 2003 311-338 DOI: 10.1177/0048393103252780 © 2003 Sage Publications 311 312 PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES / September 2003 1989; Turner 1981), and sympathetic defences (e.g., Manicas and Rosenberg 1985, 1988). Even though the basic tenets of the SP approach have remained the same since the 1970s, having been sub- ject to careful elaboration rather than serious revision, new and inter- esting critical appraisals continued to appear throughout the 1990s (e.g., Roth 1994; Mermin 1998; Pels 1996). Despite the large amount of critical scrutiny given to the SP, I would argue that a fundamental aspect of this approach has not been given the attention that it deserves. Specifically,serious consideration has not been afforded to the SP thesis that the pursuit of social inter- ests and the pursuit of instrumentally adequate knowledge are not antithetical to one another (Barnes 1982; Bloor 1976). To put this thesis another way, the SPers claim that the logics of interest and of instru- mental adequacy are not separate and potentially conflicting but are one and the same. It is important to analyze this argument for two rea- sons. First, if we are to properly assess the merits of the theoretical apparatus produced by the SPers, we must adequately comprehend the intent of the theory. Otherwise, critical remarks may be misdi- rected and the true benefits and problems of the approach obscured.1 Second, there are wider issues at stake in a reassessment of the SP approach. The SP argument for the consonance of social interests and instrumental adequacy is of particular interest because it goes against dominant tendencies within philosophy and sociological theory. In recent times, many approaches have either implicitly or explicitly offered a dualistic analysis of science that separates issues of interest from those of adequacy, suggesting that commitments to belief based on social interests may diverge from commitments based on the ratio- nality or adequacy of belief. Such a position is found in those philo- sophical responses to the SP that argue that a plausible explanation for scientists’ commitments to irrational beliefs is that they are pursu- ing social interests that conflict with rational appraisals of the ade- quacy of knowledge (see, e.g., Hollis 1982; Newton-Smith 1981). Dualist theories are also popular within British social science. Realists such as Margaret Archer and Roy Bhaskar argue that the pursuit of social interests may lead actors to commit to beliefs other than those that are the most demonstrably adequate at the time (Archer 1988, 1995; Bhaskar 1986). Against this tendency, the SPers offer a monistic approach, in which no distinction can be made between the pursuit of social interest and the pursuit of adequate belief. Rather, commit- ments based on social interests and commitments based on the instru- mental adequacy of belief are said to be the same. Kemp / STRONG PROGRAMME RECONSIDERED 313 An assessment of the SP framework is thus relevant to the debate between monistic and dualistic approaches. Within the course of this article, I shall be arguing that there are serious difficulties within the SP approach. However, unlike many critics, I shall suggest that we should look to resolve these problems by adopting a more consistent monism rather than shifting to a dualist perspective. To offer a coher- ent analysis of scientific knowledge, it is necessary to successfully unite the analysis of social interests and the adequacy of knowledge. To draw out the monistic intent of SP theorizing, I shall focus on their theory of classification, which is based on the philosophical doc- trine of meaning finitism. This is outlined in some detail in Section 2. Section 3 then critically assesses this theory, lauding its attempt to unify analysis of interests and adequacy but suggesting that this ulti- mately fails due to untenable accounts of both factors. Section 4 offers some concluding remarks. 2. SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION: A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH This section introduces the SP theory of categorization. Processes of categorization are fundamental to the development of knowledge in two respects. Firstly, it is through categorization that actors pro- duce a differentiated understanding of the world and identify the characteristics of the entities that they encounter. Second, such cate- gorizations are called upon in other forms of knowledge, including generalizations, laws, and predictions. As a result, our understanding of processes of categorization has ramifications for these other forms of knowledge. The theory of classification2 offered by the SPers is intended to demonstrate the importance of social and instrumental influences in the development of classifications. To show this, they build upon a theory of the meaning and content of categorizations called meaning finitism, developed from the work of Mary Hesse (1974) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1968), among others.3 Although the essentials of the SP approach to classification were developed in the early 1980s (e.g., Barnes 1982), interest in this approach has been renewed by the release of a textbook expounding the SP approach titled Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis (Barnes, Bloor, and Henry 1996) (for recent discussions, see Mermin 1998; Forge 1996; Miller 1996). 314 PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES / September 2003 Meaning finitism is an account of categorization processes that is intended to apply to all categorizations, whether these are part of our wider culture or lodged in specialized bodies of knowledge. Put sim- ply, meaning finitism argues that the meaning or content of any term is given by the finite set of particulars that the term designates (Bloor 1996). To grasp the meaning of any term is to learn the set of particular entities that are classified under it and that are thus instances of it. For example, to learn the meaning of the term dog is to learn which partic- ular creatures fall under that categorization. It is the set of instances that conveys the sense in which all members of the category are simi- lar to each other, that is, resemble each other, and are thus appropri- ately classified together (Barnes, Bloor, and Henry 1996, 50). So the sense in which dogs are similar is conveyed by an examination of the instances of the term dog. This understanding of the similarity of one set of entities may also provide a sense of their difference from other sets of entities. By identifying a group of particulars as dogs, we dif- ferentiate them from another group of particulars classified as cats. Having made these basic points, the SPers then make a radical move. They argue that, formally speaking, existing categorizations of similarity do not provide any guidance whatsoever for continuing acts of classification, that is, attempts to decide if a new case should be treated as an instance of an existing category. As they put it, Any classification of the next case can be reconciled with what has already been learned...however other things have been classified so far, the next thing can be classified in any way without any formal inconsistency with earlier practice. (Barnes, Bloor, and Henry 1996, 51) The reasoning behind this move is fairly simple. The SPers argue that a comparison of any and every pair of entities will find them to be both similar to each other in some respects, and different in other respects (Barnes 1982, 28). As such, if we compare a new particular to members of some existing category, we will always find that it has both similarities and differences to members of that category (Barnes, Bloor, and Henry 1996, 50). This gives us no general grounds for deciding whether it should enter that category. It could be objected that particulars can still be classified by their greater or lesser degrees of resemblance. However, Barnes, Bloor, and Henry (1996) argue that there is no possible “metric for resemblance,” and this being the case, there is no objective basis for claiming that “sameness here outweighs difference there” (Barnes, Bloor, and Kemp / STRONG PROGRAMME RECONSIDERED 315 Henry 1996, 51).
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