The progress of science depends partly, upon the acceptance of indeterminate tacit premisses about the nature of science and the object of science. These premisses are tacit because (i) they extend to what is beyond the limitations of present data, -not the empirical or the imaginative- and therefore involve heuristic anticipations. (ii) they also involve personal and interpersonal mechanisms such as the personal presuppositions and commitments of the scientist operating within a given community. This community confers values on scientific work in the form of publications, research grants, professional positions, etc.. This transcends the objective subjective dichotomy since the scientist submits to requirements acknowledged by himself with universal intent, that is the scientist's responsibility to pursue his research and confer his judgements as his vision of reality would have him hold as universally necessary. (iii)their acceptance is largely a-critical - they are functional interpretative systems rather than static objects. Although when they are the object of study, they are facts, they are not the fact since they play a vectorial role in establishing facts. They make factuaiity possible. There is a strong case for tacit knowledge. Therefore, Polanyi submits, we should question a concept of scientific objectivity which rests solely upon logical and empirical foundations. Even though numerous mathematics and technical procedures can be employed, the objective value of a scientific theory cannot be wholly formally assessed. Polanyi's theory, in differentiating rationality from formal inference, shows the way towards a non-normative but non-subjectivist epistemology of science beyond the accounts of the practice of science of Kuhn, Lakatos and Laudan.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:299699 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Mwamba, Tchafu |
| Publisher | London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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