Alternativen in der Wissenschaft / Alternatives in Science

Abstract

Abstract The development of science is neither necessary nor accidental: there are alternatives in the development of science that are not decided upon internal criteria. The concept of the alternative in science is made explicit through a distinction between internal and external determinatives of growth. Alternatives will be characterized in methodological terms. The existence of alternatives can be noticed from the lacunae in all attempts at explaining the development of science by means of a logic of discovery alone. The history of science will be interpreted in evolutionary terms: its factual development cannot be explained unless the social environment of science, the conditions of survival for theories, methods etc. are taken into account. The possibility of an external regulation of science has to be founded on a theory of the social constitution of science which explains in what sense science and society are interrelated so that a selective determination of the former by the latter is in fact possible.