Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T21:40:26.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Integrating the Philosophy and the Social Psychology of Science or a Plague on Two Houses Divided

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Ian I. Mitroff
Ian I. Mitroff*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A few years ago at the conclusion to one of his papers, Norwood Russell Hanson wrote:

… scientific observation and scientific interpretation need neither be joined nor separated. They are never apart, so they need not be joined. They cannot, not even in principle, be separated, and it is conceptually idle to make the attempt. Observation and interpretation are related symbiotically so that each conceptually sustains the other, while separation kills both. This will not be news to any practicing scientist, but it may seem heretical indeed to certain philosophers of science for whom Analysis has, alas, become indistinguishable from Division (1967, p. 99).

While not everyone would agree with Hanson regarding the role of observation and interpretation, I have often wondered what would have happened had Hanson attempted to make the same argument regarding the philosophy and the social psychology of research, if indeed he would have been inclined to attempt such an argument at all.

Type
Contributed Papers: Session IV
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 528 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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

Ackoff, R. L. and Emery, F.: 1973, On Purposeful Systems, Aldine-Atherton, Chicago.Google Scholar
Barnes, S. B. and Dolby, R. G.: 1971, ‘The Scientific Ethos: A Deviant Viewpoint’, Archives Europeens de Sociologie 11, 3-24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchman, C. W.: 1948, Theory of Experimental Inference, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Churchman, C. W.: 1971, The Design of Inquiring Systems, Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Eiduson, B. T.: 1962, Scientists: Their Psychological World, Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Feyerabend, P. K.: 1970, ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’, in M., Radner and S., Winokur (eds.), Analyses of Theories and Methods of Physics and Psychology, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Hanson, N. R.: 1967, ‘Observation and Interpretation’, in Morgenbesser, S. (ed.), Philosophy of Science Today, Basic Books, New York, pp. 89-99.Google Scholar
Kiesler, C. A.: 1971, The Psychology of Commitment, Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
King, M. D.: 1971, ‘Reason, Tradition, and the Progressiveness of Science’, History and Theory 10, 3-32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T. S.: 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakatos, I.: 1970, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, in I., Lakatos and A., Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge, University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClelland, D. C : 1970, ‘On the Psychodynamics of Creative Physical Scientists’, in Hudson, L. (ed.), The Ecology of Human Intelligence, Penguin, London.Google Scholar
Merton, R. K.: 1949, ‘Science and Democratic Structure’, in R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, The Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Merton, R. K.: 1963, ‘The Ambivalence of Scientists’, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 112, 77-97.Google Scholar
Merton, R. K.: 1969, ‘Behavior Patterns of Scientists’, American Scientist 58, 1-23.Google Scholar
Mitroff, I. I.: 1972, ‘The Mythology of Methodology: An Essay on the Nature of a Feeling Science’, Theory and Decision 2, 274-290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitroff, I. I.: 1973, ‘Systems, Inquiry, and the Meanings of Falsification’, Philosophy of Science 40, 255-276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitroff, I. I. and Mason, R. O.: 1974a, ‘On Evaluating the Scientific Contribution of the Apollo Moon Missions Via Information Theory: A Study of the Scientist-Scientist Relationship’, Management Science, 20, 1501-1513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitroff, I. I.: 1974b, ‘Norms and Counter-Norms in a Select Group of the Apollo Moon Scientists: A Case Study of the Ambivalence of Scientists’, American Sociological Review 39, 579-595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitroff, I. I.: 1974c, The Subjective Side of Science: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Psychology of the Apollo Moon Scientists, Elsevier, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Morgenbesser, S.: 1967, ‘Psychologism and Methodological Individualism’, in Morgenbesser, S. (ed.), Philosophy of Science Today, Basic Books, New York, pp. 160-174.Google Scholar
Mulkay, M.: 1969, ‘Some Aspects of Cultural Growth in the Natural Sciences’, Social Research 36, 22-52.Google Scholar
Popper, K. R.: 1964, The Poverty of Historicism, Harper, New York.Google Scholar
Popper, K. R.: 1965, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Harper, New York.Google Scholar
Popper, K. R.: 1970, ‘Normal Science and Its Dangers’ in I., Lakatos and A., Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 51-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, H.: 1968, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, University of California Press.Google Scholar
Roe, A.: 1961, ‘The Psychology of the Scientist’, Science 134, 456-459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapere, D.: 1966, ‘Meaning and Scientific Change’, in >R. G., Colodny (ed.) Mind and Cosmos, University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 41-85.Google Scholar
Toulmin, S.: 1972, Human Understanding, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, H.: 1967, ‘Nobel Laureates in Science: Patterns of Productivity, Collaboration and Authorship”, American Sociological Review 32, 391-403.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, H.: 1968, ‘Patterns of Name-ordering among Authors of Scientific Papers: A Study of Social Symbolism and Its Ambiguity’, American Journal of Sociology 74, 276-291.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, H.: 1972, ‘Interviewing an Ultra-Elite’, Public Opinion Quarterly 36, 159-175.Google Scholar