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Development, Diversity, and Conflict in the Sociology of Science Author(S): Randall Collins and Sal Restivo Source: the Sociological Quarterly, Vol

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Development, Diversity, and Conflict in the Sociology of Science Author(S): Randall Collins and Sal Restivo Source: the Sociological Quarterly, Vol Development, Diversity, and Conflict in the Sociology of Science Author(s): Randall Collins and Sal Restivo Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 185-200 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106228 Accessed: 10/06/2009 06:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and Midwest Sociological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Sociological Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org The Sociological Quarterly 24 (Spring, 1983):185-200 Development,Diversity, and Conflict in the Sociologyof Science* Randall Collins, San Diego, California Sal Restivo, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The sociologyof science has undergoneconsiderable growth and diversificationin recent years. Early sociologyof sciencewas developedwithin philosophical debates regardingthe natureof science and the social bases of knowledgein general.Karl Mannheimand Max Schelerin the 1920sgave these discussionsa specificallysocio- logical bent. In the 1930s,the themewas made into an explicitsociology of science both by Marxistsand by the functionalistRobert Merton, and both approacheswere followed up duringthe next 30 years. The takeoffof the sociologyof scienceinto a flourishingresearch area occurred in the early 1960s,with the publicationof works by Derek Price and by ThomasKuhn, as well as importantstudies by JosephBen- David and by WarrenHagstrom. In the 1970s,sociology of scienceburgeoned into a varietyof approaches:citation and networkstudies, conflict theory, social construc- tivism,ethnomethologically-influenced studies of laboratorylife, and others.The ide- alized functionalistimage of sciencehas largelygiven way to more critical,relativ- ist, andhighly empirical approaches to science. Just ten years ago, the sociology of science was dominated by and virtually synonymous with "the Mertonian paradigm." Today, it is part of an interdisci- plinary field called "social studies of science" (Spiegel-Rising and Price, 1977). Some of the newer research specialties in the field include ethnographic studies (Knorr, 1981a), discourse analysis (Mulkay, 1980), the study of "rejected knowledge" (Wallis, 1979), relativistic studies of modern natural science (Col- lins, 1981), and ethnomethodology and science (Woolgar, 1981). Citation and network analyses of specialties, sample surveys of various disciplines, and studies in the comparative history of science and mathematics are also in progress. Heated debates have emerged over philosophical and metatheoretical issues. Sig- nificant, though still modest, advances are being made by theorists. The ties be- tween sociology of science and science policy, reflected in works as ideologically distinct and separated in time as J. D. Bernal's (1939) The Social Functions of Science and D. K. Price's (1965) The Scientific Estate, are being refashioned and strengthened. Radical science studies (see, for example, Radical Science Journal), cognitive studies, sociology of mathematics, and the reunification of sociology of science and sociology of knowledge are other important features of the contemporary scene. There are no signs that a unified "paradigm" is emerg- ing that will bring "order" to the field. Rather, diversity and conflict are indica- tors of intellectual vitality and keys to future developments in the sociology of science. Our objective in this paper is to briefly sketch the development of the sociology of science and to describe some of the major areas of research and theory being cultivated today. The history of the sociology of science from about 1850 to by The Sociological Quarterly. All rights reserved. ?1983* 0038-0253/83/1300-0185$00.75 Randall Collins' address is 4243 Altamirano Way, San Diego, California 92103. 186 THE SOCIOLOGICALQUARTERLY 1940 is inextricablylinked to the developmentof the sociologyof knowledge and philosophicaldebates about the natureof science.The fieldgrew steadily, butslowly, from 1940 to 1960.A specificallysociological research tradition crys- tallizedin the early 1960s.By 1970, the Mertonianhegemony was beingchal- lengedby programmaticalternatives that soon blossomedinto activeresearch programs.Our reviewfollows this roughsequence of "stages"in the develop- mentof the sociologyof science:we beginby examiningthe period of emergence and growthfrom 1850 to 1960, thendescribe the "takeoff"of the fieldin the 1960s, and concludewith a discussionof diversityand conflictduring the past decade. Emergenceand Growth: Positivism, Marxism, and Functionalism The termpositivist, interpreted broadly, identifies scientists and studentsof sci- ence who claimthat scientificfacts (1) are aboutthe real externalworld, (2) are mediatedonly to some extentby noninductivelogical and mathematical formsof knowledge,and (3) arenot, in any significantsense, dependent on or reflectionsof socialrealities. Early forms of oppositionto positivismare found in the idealistphilosophies of Kantand Hegel. Kant,however, was intenton establishinga soundfoundation for empiricalscience by identifyinga prioricate- goriesof understanding.He imaginedthat this wouldgive scientificlaws the samesort of certaintyhe associatedwith mathematics. Hegel, on the otherhand, was one of the firstmajor philosophers to expressopen hostility to modernsci- ence.He depictedthe scientificworld view as an alienationof the Spiritfrom its trueself. His historicallyoriented critique opened the wayfor Marx'smaterialist argumentthat ideas are sociallydetermined. Marx (Marxand Engels,1846/ 1946:39-41) viewedthe ideasof an epochas consequencesof the organization of the meansof intellectualproduction. Although he (alongwith Engels) helped foundthe sociologyof knowledge,his onlyextended study of a knowledgesystem was his conceptualanalysis of calculus(Marx, 1974). His remarkson the ma- terialbases of knowledgewere primarily aimed at showinghow ideas function as politicalideologies. It is interestingto note thatMax Weber (1920/1946) discussedmodern sci- encein materialistterms in his essay,"Science as a Vocation."This essay focuses on the shiftsin earlytwentieth century German academic life causedby the cen- tralizationand monopolizationof laboratoryequipment. The promiseof this typeof materialistsociology of sciencehas not yet beenfully realized. It suggests lookingat the actualmachinery of intellectualproduction-parchment, printing presses,microscopes, cyclotrons, biochemical laboratories, and so on-and at the organizationalforms and property relations associated with it. The explana- toryobjective is to (1) showthat certain material and organizational conditions can be expectedto producecertain ideas (or typesof ideas) and (2) revealthe historicalpatterns of changein themeans of intellectualproduction. This aspectof Marxismhas not beenas influentialin the sociologyof science as the idea thatforms of knowledgeare direct reflections of economicorganiza- tions or the interestsand outlooks of particularsocial classes. Recent Marxist- orientedsociology of science has continuedto stress this approach.Sohn-Rethel (1978), for example,attributes the rise of ancientGreek mathematics to the de- The Sociologyof Science 187 velopmentof a monetaryeconomy in Ioniansociety. Habermas(1971) similarly interpretsmodern science and technology as part of the ideological sphere of class domination.Such argumentshave a tendencyto adulteratematerialism with idealism. That is, the ideas associatedwith certain economic activitiesor class interests come to be viewed as the major influenceson or causes of scientific ideas. One reason for the popularityof this form of argumentmay be that it is relativelysimple and cheap. It can be made independentof empiricalverification and comparativehistorical evidence. One can simplyfit an interpretationonto an historicalepoch because it "makessense" intellectually to do so. Max Scheler (1925) and Karl Mannheim(1929/1936) were amongthe first scholarsin the post-WorldWar I period to take up the idea that knowledgere- flects social structure.Neither was a Marxist,but both were influencedby an intellectualatmosphere in whichMarxism had recentlyand rapidlyachieved con- siderableprominence. Mannheim in particularaddressed the relativisticimplica- tions of the Marxist argumentelegantly articulatedby Lukacs (1923/1971): the Mannheimianproblem involved associatingdegrees of false consciousness with differentsocial
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