Abstract
Most scientists who are willing to articulate knowledge from sources, for example to solve a problem set by the society, are confronted daily with the heterogeneity of scientific approaches and with the need to solve difficulties in combining knowledge from various scientific areas. But these difficulties may be set aside when the philosophy of science postulates the possibility of establishing a priori rational principles of a unified science. In so doing it logically considers that the problems encountered in integrating scientific knowledge from different sources result from institutional gaps or organisational failures, or from the lack of researchers’ skills. The analysis of these problems is consequently handed over to the sociology of science. Therefore, the debate on the unity of science may conceal the heuristic value of approaches based on an epistemological regionalism to support the rational construction of knowledge. Due to the heterogeneity research programmes that coexist within each discipline the integration of scientific knowledge is an epistemic situation that needs clarification. Through short examples taken form social sciences and ecology, this chapter aims at showing how the formalisation of the plurality of scientific approaches may help to overcome difficulties encountered by researchers in getting an overview of the existing scientific knowledge, in integrating their approaches and in securing the recognition of the quality of their results.
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Notes
- 1.
This definition is taken from a manual designed to popularize the philosophy of science, and the authors themselves repeatedly point out the incompleteness of a manual of this type.
- 2.
- 3.
Further information on this sociological theory can be found in Bourdieu, Passeron 1989.
- 4.
Further information on this approach can be found in Burel, Baudry 1999.
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Laurent, C. (2012). Plurality of Science and Rational Integration of Knowledge. In: Pombo, O., Torres, J., Symons, J., Rahman, S. (eds) Special Sciences and the Unity of Science. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2030-5_13
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