Abstract

The program Amsterdamski suggests in Between History and Method may not he deemed 'strong enough' by the sociologists; but he believes that it offers the only way to give an account of the evident specificity of science with respect to other products of human intellectual activities if we cannot accept the idea of the supra-historical rationality of human nature. What differentiates such a program from the old so-called 'rationalist tradition' is the thesis that the background consensus is not the incarnation of immanent human rationality, and that it is not historically stable. What differentiates this program from (at least some) contemporary developments in the sociology of science is the notion that if the circumstances of cognition have any impact upon the content of knowledge, this impact is not immediate, but rather is mediated by the relatively stable set of values and ideas constituting the research tradition. It is precisely on the basis of these traditions, which provide the resources for creative renewal from within, that new scientific knowledge is universalized. This book will be of interest to historians of science, philosophers and sociologists of science.