Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:47:44.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Content-Independent Explanation of Science's Effectiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

M. Ross Quillian
M. Ross Quillian*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and Society, University of California at Irvine
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Politics and Society, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92717, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper proposes an explanation in terms of three kinds of freedom, first for the special efficacy of science in general and then for why such efficacy has been more impressive in the natural than the social sciences. This explanation thus complements “post-positivist” interpretations of science which argue that science's effectiveness cannot be accounted for by fundamental epistemic differences from other kinds of discourse. My explanation tries to say what is responsible for science's effectiveness, in purely nonepistemic, sociological terms. All of the three kinds of freedom have so far been denied to most other forums, including in particular nations' populations taken overall. And one of these freedoms, while now allowed to the natural sciences, is still denied to the social sciences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 429 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berger, P. (1986), The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (1992), What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. W. (1959), The Social Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1957), The Poverty of Historicism. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Quillian, M. R. (1994), Taking Free Media Seriously: A Necessary Next Step for Democracy. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Rouse, J. (1987), Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rouse, J. (1991), “Interpretation in Natural and Human Science”, in Hiley, D. R., Bohman, J. F., and Shusterman, R., (eds.), The Interpretive Turn: Philosophy, Science, Culture., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 42–56.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1971), “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man”, Review of Metaphysics 25: 3–51.Google Scholar
Unger, R. M. (1987), False Necessity: Anti Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ziman, J. (1968), Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social Dimension of Science. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar