Wolfgang van den Daele

Die Finalisierung der Wissenschaft

Abstract Contemporary science is characterized by a specific latitude for alternative developments. This means that science is open for external (economic, social, political) purposes to become the guide-lines of the development of theory. The transition to such a structure is here defined as „the finalization of science“. This notion must be distinguished from traditional forms of the „application“ of theoretical results. To explicate it, assumptions are developed relating to the structure and bearing of the self-regulatives operative in contemporary science. Three causes are suggested of the decline in the internal determination of the development of science: The achievement of a state of „theoretical maturity“ in fundamental disciplines (e.g., physics and chemistry); partial renunciation of the demand for causal explication and transition to functionalist sciences (e.g., psychology); the necessity of combining ecological approaches with the traditional analytical premises in different scientific disciplines. The perspective of the finalization of science embodies a growing coincidence of theoretical aims and social norms. Zusammenfassung Die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart ist durch einen spezifischen Alternativspielraum der Entwicklung gekennzeichnet: Sie ist offen dafür, daß externe (ökonomische, soziale, politische) Zwecke zum Entwicklungsleitfaden der Theorie werden. Der Übergang zu einer solchen Struktur wird als „Finalisierung der Wissenschaft“ definiert. Sie ist abzusetzen von traditionellen Formen der „Anwendung“ theoretischer Ergebnisse. Zu ihrer Erklärung werden Annahmen über Struktur und Reichweite der in der gegenwärtigen Wissenschaft geltenden Eigenregulative entwickelt. Drei Gründe werden für die Abnahme interner Determinierung der Wissenschaftsentwicklung gesehen: Das Erreichen eines Zustands „theoretischer Reife“ in grundlegenden Disziplinen (z. B. Physik und Chemie); der partielle Verzicht auf die Forderung kausaler Erklärung und der Übergang zu funktionalistischen Wissenschaften (z. B. Psychologie);die Notwendigkeit, ökologische Betrachtungsweisen mit den traditionellen Analyseansätzen der wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen zu verbinden. In der Perspektive der Finalisierung der Wissenschaft liegt eine zunehmende Koinzidenz von theoretischen Zwecken und sozialen Normen.

Finalization in science

The expansion of science Derek de Solla Price has calculated that the number of scientists is growing three times as fast as the world population has to an increasing degree become subject to limitations. The rise in the social investments necessary for continued scientific growth will increasingly provoke political resistance, especially as there is no dependable procedure at present for analysing the scientific results of increased outlays 1. The attempts to rationalize science policy by a systems approach to the determination of priorities and by the use of analytic methods have so far been futile. It is not clear what elements and processes in science can be consciously regulated, and by what means this could be accomplished, nor are there any procedures at hand to control or to evaluate the effects of the venture. Scientists themselves to an increasing degree tend to view the orientation of science towards economic, military and infrastructural goals as being problematic. On the one side this reflects their concern that this orientation may hinder or distort theoretical progress, on the other it reflects the insight that as long as the prevailing goal-orientations remain operative the demand for a socially relevant science must remain unfulfilled. It is our assumption that the self-examination called forth within science by the impact of these problems both reveals and promotes a fundamental

The ‘Scientification’ of Technology

In medieval times the construction of cathedrals was assigned to architectural workshops. For the organization and the techniques of construction the architects and craftsmen relied on traditional knowledge which was often kept secret by the rules of the guilds and which was only slightly modified with the acquisition of new knowledge. The construction of the largest cathedral of late medieval times, the cathedral of Milan, begun in 1386, raised unexpected problems of mathematics and statics (1). The recently acquired economic and political status of Milan called for the largest building of the period, but the city desired that the design did not follow northern European rules of construction. Within the Roman tradition of Lombardian aesthetics the northern Gothic style was considered too arching and the supporting system of pillars and flying butresses was felt to be confusing. Further, this style was determined by a well-established principle of construction which stipulated that the height of the church be equal to its width. The Milanese workshop, however, decided to work from an equilateral triangle as cross section. They hoped that the less arching elevation of this design would allow for the elimination of the confusing system of support, even if the size of the cathedral exceeded the Gothic constructions.

Science as an agent of change: finalization and experimental implementation

This article proposes that goal-oriented sciences contribute not only theory-based knowledge but also strategies of research to processes of social and technological innovation. The finalization model focused on disciplinary programmes, we focus on networks of innovation in which scientists become agents of change. Their role implies taking a variety of political, economic, legal and moral considerations into account, and their activities not only are addressed to problem solution but also generate new risks and public concerns. Still, science does not merge with political choice, economic interest or moral values in a seamless web. The article presents a systems theoretical restitution of the “internal-external” distinction in sociological terms. On this conceptual basis two case studies are presented - the development of waste management technologies and the introduction of genetically modified plants in agriculture - which illustrate both the diversity and the specificity of the functions of science as an agent of change.

The Political Direction of Scientific Development

The question of whether processes of scientific development can be socially directed has been discussed for several decades with no convincing conclusions emerging. The controversies have produced, however, several conceptual distinctions which form a vocabulary for the analysts of science. Distinctions are often, for instance, made between: pure research and applied research; the autonomy of academic research and the heteronomy of industrial or governmental science; the internalist orientation of scientists concerned with the study of nature and the externalist orientation related to its regulation and domination, i.e. oriented to technology. These distinctions, although conceptually not sharp, are based on contrasting cases in the history of science such as, e.g., quantum mechanics, cancer research and agricultural chemistry.

The Social Construction of Science: Institutionalisation and Definition of Positive Science in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century

This essay is intended to contribute to the debate about the internal or external historiography of the rise of modern science. The internal-external distinction defines the contest between two explanatory programs. The one analyzes the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century as a cognitive transformation in the history of the endogenous development of intellectual structures, the other seeks the reasons for this transformation in the technical, economic and cultural conditions of the society (2). The point of contention between the two programs is that the internal program not only seeks to reconstruct the development of science logically but also to explain it historically. It assumes an independent history of intellectual structures; the development of the forms of knowledge is an independent variable of cultural evolution. The external program, on the other hand, views the social structures and the environment of science not simply as contingent boundary conditions or as a complementary dimension of the development of the logical structures of thought but regards them as constitutive of these.

Experimental implementation as a linking mechanism in the process of innovation

Abstract The involvement of scientists in the networks of innovation links research activities to practical (technical, economic), political and moral considerations. This does not make the functional differences that exist between doing research and making practical decision disappear, but both sides are affected by the interaction. Two case studies are presented that illustrate how science contributes not only knowledge, but also its mode of operation—experimenting—to processes of social and technological innovation, while the problems emerging in the process of experimental implementation pose new cognitive challenges for research.

Der Traum von der ‚alternativen‘ Wissenschaft

Zusammenfassung Die Forderung nach ‚alternativer‘ Wissenschaft ist eine Konsequenz radikaler Wissenschaftskritik. Sie zielt auf eine Entdifferenzierung von objektiver Geltung und moralischen Ansprüchen im Begriff der Erkenntnis ab und auf eine Deinstitutionalisierung gegenwärtiger Wissenschaftsstandards als Bezugsrahmen des Forschungshandelns und des gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisses zur Natur. Behandelt werden einige soziologische Implikationen dieser Perspektiven. Die Möglichkeit ‚alternativer‘ Wissenschaft wird anhand der Strategien und Resultate der Ökosystemforschung diskutiert. Dieser Forschung wurde auch von Ökologen das Potential zugeschrieben, eine normative Naturerkenntnis zu realisieren.

Alternativen in der Wissenschaft / Alternatives in Science

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. Zusammenfassung Der wissenschaftliche Fortschritt ist weder notwendig noch zufällig: Es gibt Alternativen in der Entwicklung der Wissenschaft, die nicht nach wissenschaftsinternen Kriterien entschieden werden. Der Begriff der Wissenschaftsalternative wird durch eine Unterscheidung interner und externer Bestimmungsfaktoren des Wachstums und durch eine Topik, die alternative Wissenschaften wissenschaftstheoretisch kennzeichnet, konkretisiert. Die Möglichkeit von Alternativen läßt sich ablesen an den systematischen Leerstellen der forschungslogischen Erklärungsversuche der Wissenschaftsentwicklung. Die Wissenschaftsgeschichte wird mit den Mitteln der Evolutionstheorie interpretiert: Die tatsächliche Entwicklung kann nur erklärt werden, wenn man auf die Umwelt der Wissenschaft rekurriert, die Überlebensbedingungen für Theorien, Methoden usw. setzt. Die Möglichkeit externer Steuerung der Wissenschaftsentwicklung muß durch eine Theorie der sozialen Konstitution der Wissenschaft begründet werden, die plausibel macht, inwiefern Wissenschaftsund Gesellschaftsstrukturen einander so entsprechen, daß eine selektive Bestimmung der ersteren durch die letzteren möglich ist.

Von moralischer Kommunikation zur Kommunikation über Moral / From Moral Communication to Communicating about Morality

Zusammenfassung Rituale der Konfrontation und Empörung sind an der Tagesordnung, wenn moralische Konflikte in öffentlichen Arenen ausgetragen werden. In diskursiven Verfahren finden sie jedoch kaum einen Niederschlag. Die Analyse der Kommunikationsprozesse in einer partizipativen Technikfolgenabschätzung zu gentechnisch veränderten Pflanzen zeigt die Mechanismen, die im Diskurs die Dramatik des Moralisierens unterbinden: (1) Die sozialen Kontrollen des Diskurses erzwingen einen sachlichen Kommunikationsstil, der die Verletzung des Gegners durch moralische Diskreditierung ausschließt. (2) Die Rigorismen der geltenden Moral laufen ins Leere, weil die Konfliktparteien sich demonstrativ Konsens bescheinigen. Was dann noch umstritten bleibt, sind häufig Wertungen, die nicht kategorische moralische Ansprüche betreffen, sondern wählbare politische Ziele. (3) Soweit es tatsächlich zum Zusammenprall inkompatibler moralischer Ansprüche kommt, weicht der Diskurs auf Prozeduralisierung aus. Man wechselt von Fragen der Moral zu Fragen des Umgangs mit Differenzen der Moral. Diskurse tendieren dazu, einen Pluralismus von Moral zu legitimieren und Toleranz für die jeweils Andersdenkenden zu fordern. Eben deshalb ist nicht zu erwarten, dass man moralische Konflikte, die fundamentalistische Schärfe erreichen, wirksam in diskursive Verfahren einbinden kann. Summary Confrontation and indignation rituals are a regular feature of moral conflicts dealt with in the public arena. In discursive procedures, however, such rituals rarely find any resonance. An analysis of the communication processes that went on in a participatory assessment of the technological repercussions of genetically modified plants revealed the mechanisms that suppress moralistic posturing in a discourse. First, social constraints force the participants to adopt a professional style of communication that prevents them from battering their opponents with moral disrepute. Second, moral intransigence is out of place to the extent that the conflicting parties share a moral consensus. What remains in dispute are often values that are not related to categorical moral claims, but rather to real political options. Third, whenever truly incompatible moral premises threaten to collide, the discourse shifts to procedural issues, that is, from questions of morality to questions of how differences in morality are, or ought to be, dealt with. Discourses tend to legitimize a plurality of moral beliefs and insist upon tolerance toward dissenting views. For that very reason, it is not to be expected that moral conflicts characterized by extreme fundamentalism can be integrated effectively in discursive procedures.