The Research On The Science In The Sociology Of Science Of Robert King Merton

This thesis mainly discusses the science in the Sociology of Science of Robert King Merton. As the founder of the Sociology of Science and the leading exponent of structural functionalism, Merton initiate extraordinary unique canonical form for research of the Sociology of Science, which has become the only theoretical method and mature framework to be used for sociological research in this discipline for a long time. However, when backdating the developing process of the Sociology of Science from the visual angle of today, we realize impressively that the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), represented by Edinburgh school England, progress rapidly based on its radical claims of scientific constructive theory, and has become the mainstream of the Sociology of Science. Where the change rises from? Why it rises and how? All these questions inspirit us to ponder.As the theoretical basis of the Sociology of Science of Merton, the scientific viewpoint of positivism not only regulates the characteristics of Merton's theory, but determines its decline of later period to a large extend. Thereby, by reviewing the relationship between Merton's scientific viewpoint of positivism and the theory of the Sociology of Science, this thesis tries to analysis what...