Rational Brilliance Of Scientific System

Robert K.Merton has created a series of influential theories in the field of Sociology of Science with his whole life and these theories provide a successful paradigm for our deep understandings of social operation of Science. Merton's academic achievements have been recognized widely in the field of international sociology, who is known as the father of Sociology of Science. Once, the Merton Paradigm had played a leading role in Sociology of Science, whose theory basis is structure-functional analysis and whose characteristic is the empirical research. However, with the rise of SSK, its dominant status has been eliminated and marginalized. In view of the important position of Merton's Sociology of Science, it's time to review it systematically. The scholars have made many helpful discussions. However, these studies are still relatively decentralized on the whole and essentially in a piecemeal research state. The results that reflect the general picture of Merton's thoughts are relatively few. More scholars have a micro-level study on specific theories of Merton's Sociology of Science and few analyzes its consistent core spirit at the macro-level, which isn't conducive for us to grasp and posit Merton's thoughts on the whole. And that, the autonomy of science in different countries and regions has been trampled to varying degrees currently, so it's important to study systematically the ideas on autonomy of science and the core spirit of defending rationality and objectivity of science in Merton's thoughts.The author applies document analysis, combining history and logic and comparative method to study Merton's ideas and tries to focus on the following issues: What was the reason that Merton turned the Scientific Sociology of Knowledge to the Sociology of Scientific System? What is the research focus of Merton's Sociology of Science and what it intends to solve the basic problems are? What is its consistent core spirit? What are the limitations and their origin? What is the fundamental difference between SSK and Merton's Sociology of Science? when it got into the theoretical plight, Will it be replaced by SSK or integrated with SSK? Has Merton's Sociology of Science the value continue to exist and provide what enlightments to Chinese academic community? Along Merton's consistent thought line, this paper uses as a social system of science for the entry point, which is the theoretical premise that can represent the characteristics of the Merton's Sociology of Science to the most, and then discusses several issues on it systematically and thoroughly, including the research focus, core spirit, the limitations and their origin and the future development trend. It has gained some innovative results. The author puts forward and argues powerfully that the line running through Merton's thoughts of Sociology of Science is to defend the rationality of science by emphasizing the autonomy of scientific system. Most work of Merton School is around the line of defending the rationality of scientific system. The paper has made a theoretical discussion on the future development trend of Merton's Sociology of Science in trouble, combining its specific backgrounds and those related closely issues. These contents are expounded in the introduction, including significance and origin of the subject, the research situations, the basic train of thinking, research methods and the innovations.There are three sections including the introduction, the body and the last part in the paper and five chapters in the body part.The author sorts out research path of Merton's Sociology of Science in Chapter I. With the changes of theoretical and social backgrounds, there are different research issues in Merton's Sociology of Science at different times. According to different issues, the development of Merton's thoughts can be divided into four stages. The first stage is called start-up phase-in the 1930s. Merton analyzed a variety of social factors which contributed to the rise or the institutionalization of modern science dynamically and hadn't yet formed an independent sociological explanation to science. His theoretical framework was a part of the traditional Sociology of Knowledge. The second stage is called turning-point phase-in the 1940s and 1950s. The events of Nazi Germany trampling on science and the Parsons'structure functionalism had a great impact on Merton. Merton constructed his paradigm of functional analysis and established the direction of his Sociology of Science which is that the science can be seen as a kind of social system by sublating the traditional Sociology of Knowledge. Merton turned to study the structure of science and put forward the theory of norms of science and the idea of rewarding of science. The third phase is called boom phase-the 1960s to mid of 1970s. With the science becoming the origin of social problems, Merton's work had been receiving more and more attentions from the scholars and Merton School gradually came into being. During this period, Merton School focused on studying the social structure of science and carried out a full range of study on science as a social system, such as the evaluating mechanism, the rewarding system,the manners of communication and the hierarchical structure, etc, whose study belonged to the static structural-function analysis. The fourth phase can be called the decline phase-in the late 1970s to date. The author arrange the contents in Chapter V for the layout of the whole paper.The author analyzes the theoretical premise, research focus and the core spirit of Merton's Sociology of Science in Chapter II. First of all, the author ponders upon the meanings of science in Merton's Sociology of Science by combining with the turning point in its development. In the start-up period, Merton analyzed the relationships between Social existences and science considered as a sort of knowledge form. Science at this time was in the narrow sense and referred to the natural science specifically. After the research issues of Merton's Sociology of Science changed, He studied science as a kind of social system mostly, which has its own unique structure of norm and its value goal was the expansion of confirmed knowledge. From this point of view, it had somethings in common with science being knowledge form. Secondly, the author digs out the research focus of Merton's Sociology of Science from its basic research contents, such as the interaction of science and society, social structure of science and the rise and decline of discipline or specialty. Merton talked about how social factors acted as a stimulus to the development of science only at the level of impact rather than the fundamental driving force. Merton School emphasized that scientific system should run in accordance with its own norms of conduct, rewarding system and evaluating mechanism in order to prevent the interference and control of factitious and social factors. At the same time, they indicated that disciplines or specialties had their own law of development and the impact of external factors work only through the disciplines or specialties. These contents above reflect research focus of Merton's Sociology of Science from different aspects that is to emphasize the autonomy of science. Thirdly, Merton followed the positivist view of science on the issues of scientific knowledge. He thought that the social factors could only influence the development pace and focus transfer of science except for its specific contents. Logical positivism emphasized rational spirit from the angle of epistemology. Merton's Sociology of Science pondered on science as a kind of social system and ensured that the expansion of confirmed knowledge could be realized by emphasizing the autonomy of scientific system, so that the rational spirit of science was strengthened from the angle of sociology. It can be said that the core spirit of Merton's thoughts is to defend the rationality and objectivity of science.The author discusses the limitations of Merton's Sociology of Science and their origins in Chapter III. The paper firstly probes into the deficiencies of norms of science and the rewarding of science at the micro-level, which sep up the basic theoretical framework of Merton's Sociology of Science. Then, the author analyze and summarize Some deficiencies in Merton's of Sociology of Science at the macro level, which are "inadequate attention to the subjective factors and social factors"; "lack of inspection on the interaction of scientific system and other social systems"; "weak analysis on the non-elite scientists". Lastly, the chapter analyzes these limitations' origins from the philosophical basis of Merton's Sociology of Science. The author inspects the current situations of the philosophical basis-positivist epistemology and functionalism methodology. It's found that Some core tenets of Positivist view of science: demarcation of Science, value neutrality and experience-confirmed principle were overthrew by historism and post-modernism philosophy of science. Structural-functionalism analysis emphasized the priority of function to structure and the priority of common value system to personal motives and behaviors which had excluded the existence of diverse structures in the system and ignored the personal initiative and particularity. And so it was refuted by exchange theory. The criticisms to Merton's norms come from the refutation of empirical evidence and the existence of anti-norm, which are the extension of criticisms to the structural-functionalism analysis in essence. Merton's norms inherit the scientific view of positivism and technical specifications are seen as generally effective. They ignored the historical context where the technical standards were applied, so receiving many criticism. Merton stressed the cognitive-strengthened function of the rewarding system of science but ignored its economical function. He had received challenges from Richter's"two types of exchange systems", Mulkay's "information-exchange theory", Latour and Woolgar's"credit-cycle model",which were the expansion of exchange theory's criticism on the structural-functionism theory actually. Those limitations at macro-level are attributed to the philosophical basis, too.The author reviews the challenges from SSK in Chapter IV. SSK began to develop by criticizing the Merton's Sociology of Science. It was dissatisfied with the way of Merton's Sociology of Science suspended scientific knowledge and thought that it wasn't the true Sociology of Science. On the basis of the premise of Naturalistic empiricism and relativism, SSK criticized the traditional scientific view. It thought that all knowledge without exception should become a legitimate area of sociological research. Its entire work focus is to explain that the formation of scientific knowledge and the results of science contain the social factors. Merton school had responded to criticism from the SSK. On the one hand, they recognized constructivism Sociology of Science had become increasingly influential. Simultaneously they criticized that the extreme relativism position of SSK exaggerated the role of social factors. If we compare Merton's Sociology of Science with SSK, it's easy to find that the fundamental difference between them is whether the contents of scientific knowledge can be put to sociological analysis. The essence of difference lies in how much effect the social factors have during the production of scientific knowledge. SSK explained the social nature of scientific knowledge and thought that the nature is little or virtually non-functional in constructing the scientific knowledge. It's true that the process of scientific understandings is full with a variety of social factors, but it doesn't mean that the contents of scientific knowledge are determined by the non-rational or social factors. Fundamentally speaking, scientific knowledge is a reflection of the objective reality and constrained by it. So it is unimaginable for the understandings to deviate from the Objective physical objects.The author ponders on the future development trend of Merton's Sociology of Science in Chapter V. Firstly, the paper analyzes the current situations of Merton's Sociology of Science and SSK. The rise of SSK caused the gradual decline of Merton's Sociology of Science and urged it to make some adjustments and concessions. Merton School began to overcome the simplistic and idealized Positivism view of science. Merton abandoned the label of functionalism and was in favor of the paradigm of structural analysis. Merton's disciples put forward the functionalism of constructivism and the constructivism of realism to revise Merton's theoretical programs. They started to study the social factors in the actual operation of scientific research and discuss the issues at the junction of social structure and cognitive structure of science. But their researches are more a summary of thoughts rather than ground-breaking. At the same time, SSK's relativism epistemology received severe criticisms from different aspects. The Sociologists and Philosophers had criticized the principle of symmetry, relativism view of knowledge and the sociological ambition advocated by the Strong Program. It's not adequate enough for SSK to explain how social factors affect the specific contents of scientific knowledge. Relativism is self-refuting and its symmetry is in fact asymmetry, So that SSK faces the reflexive problem and its internal squabble, starting to split. In this case, what the development trend of Merton's Sociology of Science will be? The author discusses several problems that are related closely to it, which are as follows: "whether Merton's norms are necessary in the era of Big Science and how to extend them"; "the possibility for SSK to replace Merton's Sociology of Science or to integrate with it"; "the thought heritages of Merton's Sociology of Science" and "the enlightenments of post-SSK's practice turning". The author points out that SSK couldn't negate the value of Merton's Sociology of Science continuing to exist and it has left us with the precious heritage in experience and theory. Its core spirit is to ensure the rationality and objectivity of science by defending the autonomy of scientific system. It is full of rational brilliance of scientific system and ideal appeal and worth looking forward to forever.The last part expounds on the enlightments of Merton's Sociology of Science to Chinese academic community. Firstly, the paper analyzes the references of its thought system and research methods to Chinese Sociology of Science. Then, It discusses the enlightments of Merton's thought in Sociology of Science to Chinese development and reform of science and technology, which is to emphasize the autonomy of scientific system,as to defend the rationality and objectivity of science.