Perception and Observation in the Strong Program in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

The article analyzes a connection between empiricism and the Strong Program in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (D. Bloor, B. Barnes, J. Henry). I use Strong Program’s theories of perception and observation in science as cases to demonstrate this link. The main points of my argument are the following. First, characteristic problems of the empiricist tradition are at the focus of the Strong Program. Second, relations between the Strong Program and empiricist tradition are complex. While proponents of the Strong Program criticize classical empiricism of Bacon and logical empiricism, they employ new empiricism of Mary Hesse’s network model as a crucial theoretical resource for their social theory of knowledge. Third, The Strong Program uses Hesse’s theory as a model for the renewal of the sociology of (scientific) knowledge. A key point of the analysis is that it is reasonable to add to the Mannheimian and Wittgensteinian traditions in the sociology of knowledge another empiricist one as exemplified in the Strong Program. I conclude the article by stressing interdisciplinary tendencies in this empiricist sociology of scientific knowledge.