This study investigates the challenges to the legitimacy and authority of scientific research in late modern philosophy of science. The author suggests that the different challenges to the legitimacy of science have led to relativism and amount to a crisis. Keeping in mind the positivist background, he illustrates the legitimacy crisis of science in the period from Popper to the present. In particular his analysis focuses on the "historical school" (Kuhn, Feyerabend etc.) in philosophy of science. The main question of this study is: what are the causes and the nature of the legitimacy crisis emerging in the contemporary philosophical assessment of science? To answer this question, a few specific challenges to the legitimacy of science emerging in particular areas are analysed: for example the difficulties of anchoring scientific certitude to its proper object of study, the loss of objectivity, growing scepticism about the possibility of communication and scientific progress. After substantiating the gradual emergence of relativist and sceptical approaches in the abovementioned areas, this study provides a "diagnosis" aiming at identifying the causes of the crisis. The humanist ground motive of nature and freedom and the choice of anchoring scientific certainty either in the subject or in the object of knowledge are considered the main sources of the crisis. They lead to arbitrary absolutisations of particular aspects of the scientific enterprise and (in the case of subjectivist approaches) to sceptical approaches to the possibility of scientific objectivity, communication and progress. This study also indicates a few possible resources, available in the reformational tradition, to counteract the legitimacy crisis of science. The main resource indicated in this study is the recognition of the structural order for reality, which is accessible to scientific analysis, "constrains" scientific research but also constitutes a common ground for researchers. Other important resources are the recognition of the link between scientific and pre-scientific knowledge and the acknowledgment that universality and individuality are traits of everything that exists. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Philosophy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This study investigates the challenges to the legitimacy and authority of scientific research in late modern philosophy of science. The author suggests that the different challenges to the legitimacy of science have led to relativism and amount to a crisis. Keeping in mind the positivist background, he illustrates the legitimacy crisis of science in the period from Popper to the present. In particular his analysis focuses on the "historical school" (Kuhn, Feyerabend etc.) in philosophy of science. The main question of this study is: what are the causes and the nature of the legitimacy crisis emerging in the contemporary philosophical assessment of science? To answer this question, a few specific challenges to the legitimacy of science emerging in particular areas are analysed: for example the difficulties of anchoring scientific certitude to its proper object of study, the loss of objectivity, growing scepticism about the possibility of communication and scientific progress. After substantiating the gradual emergence of relativist and sceptical approaches in the abovementioned areas, this study provides a "diagnosis" aiming at identifying the causes of the crisis. The humanist ground motive of nature and freedom and the choice of anchoring scientific certainty either in the subject or in the object of knowledge are considered the main sources of the crisis. They lead to arbitrary absolutisations of particular aspects of the scientific enterprise and (in the case of subjectivist approaches) to sceptical approaches to the possibility of scientific objectivity, communication and progress. This study also indicates a few possible resources, available in the reformational tradition, to counteract the legitimacy crisis of science. The main resource indicated in this study is the recognition of the structural order for reality, which is accessible to scientific analysis, "constrains" scientific research but also constitutes a common ground for researchers. Other important resources are the recognition of the link between scientific and pre-scientific knowledge and the acknowledgment that universality and individuality are traits of everything that exists. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Philosophy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

À la croisée des sociologies des sciences, de l’éducation et du travail, cette thèse présente, à partir d’une analyse de l’ensemble des disciplines de l’enseignement supérieur, une série de processus qui contribuent à la perpétuelle remise en cause de la légitimité scientifique des sciences sociales dans la recherche française contemporaine. Cette analyse en trois temps, historique, statistique puis par enquête par questionnaire et entretiens met en évidence un phénomène de désavantages cumulatifs de ces domaines. Institutionnalisées dans les facultés de lettres et de droit dans une période d’ascension forte de la légitimité de celle des sciences, les sciences sociales occupent une position inconfortable d’altérité et d’infériorité scientifiques, que l’enseignement secondaire contemporain contribue à entretenir. Situées à l’intersection des pratiques des sciences humaines, biologiques et mathématiques, ces disciplines se voient fréquemment accusées de ne pas répondre au modèle des sciences physiques. Scindées en deux facultés, les profils scolaires et sociaux de leurs étudiants et de carrières de leurs chercheurs sont plus hétérogènes que dans les sciences non sociales, ce qui affaiblit leur cohérence. Intériorisant leur position dominée, ces disciplines naturalisent la faiblesse des moyens qui leurs sont accordés en les justifiant par des besoins temporels spécifiques et une imprévisibilité indépassable. / Combining the sociology of science, of education and of professions, this thesis analyses the field of academic disciplines to present a series of social process contributing to the constant questionings regarding the scientificity of the social sciences in contemporary France. This three steps analysis (historical, statistical, and through surveys and interviews) unveils a phenomenon of cumulative disadvantages for these disciplines. Institutionalized in the Facultés of law and literature in a period of important rise to power of the scientific one, social sciences have been considered as “other” and “inferior” in terms of scientificity from the beginning, a situation that is strongly maintained today through the implicit hierarchies of fields taught in high school. At the crossroad of humanities, biological and mathematical sciences, the scientific practices of the social sciences are frequently evaluated and denigrated through the criteria of the physical sciences. Divided into two facultés, students and faculties in those fields have more heterogeneous social and educational backgrounds then those in other sciences, contributing to a social image of dissensus. Interiorizing their subordinated position, social scientists tend to justify the small share of resources that they receive through the valorization of specific temporal needs and unpredictability of their research.