Sociological Skepticism toward Scientific Progress

Abstract

Progress, truth, and rationality form a basic vocabulary for epistemology and philosophy of science. Sociological investigations of scientific knowledge, start­ing from the works of Thomas Kuhn, Barry Barnes and David Bloor, eliminate these traditional and central categories of philosophy. Their profound works be­came the source for the new types of scepticism toward scientific cognition, its proclaimed goals and received results. Within sociological studies of knowledge, science is researched as an integral part of culture. The scientific belief is deter­mined not only by achievements of reason, transcendental conditions, ways of perception or acquired experience, but rather by social authority, collec­tive agreements and distribution of power. In the article “What is scientific pro­gress?” Alexander Leonidovich Nikiforov outlines perspectives for compromise in sociological and philosophical thinking in order to overcome relativism and sceptical conclusions toward scientific progress. After all, scientific and social progress is not the unconditional ideal for humankind. It means only that scien­tific progress requires a new justification, especially in the light of synthesis be­tween philosophical and sociological methodologies. Another important aspect, stressed by Nikiforov, interprets the progress within the socio-humanitarian field. In the future, it is surely possible to expect the results from human sciences, whereas the resources of natural history evaporate and arrive to the last frontier. The most difficult is the knowledge of ourselves. Perhaps, it explains why the progress in human sciences has been gaining strength and promising the visi­ble, quite instrumental outbreaks.