A Comparative Study Of Feyerabend's And David Bloor's Thoughts On Science And Society

People's lifestyles have been changed deeply by the development of modern science.People notice that their lives could be improved by the productivity transformed from science.Based on that,they trust in science without doubt.Science has replaced Religion to be the prime belief.But science isn't omnipotent and it has too many troubles to overcome.Lots of new problems have emerged as a result of superstition in science,they even have brought catastrophes to humankind.Where does the authority of science come from? Is the way of scientific practice in society unique? An array of postmodernist thinkers who emerged from Western society in 1970 s investigated these problems deeply,and Feyerabend and David Bloor are two representatives of them.Feyerabend criticized the scientism thoroughly at the view-point of historicist philosophy of science.He began with the problem of the relationship between observation and theory,then he progressed from the incommensurability of meanings to the incommensurability of cultures,from the pluralism of methodology of science to the pluralism of epistemology.After all,he rejected all authorities and advocated that people should treat all conventions which include science equally,and he trended to humanism by presenting the notion of free society.His thoughts have formed a circle of explanation in the philosophy of science.His core thoughts of Pluralism weaken his radical suggestions.Although his views have caused a great impact to the philosophy of science,it couldn't do more to affect the outside world.David Bloor regarded science as a natural phenomenon,he tried to illustrate the constructive effect of society to scientific knowledge from the view of sociology.He concluded the advantages and disadvantages of classical sociology of knowledge and sociology of science,and he applied the sociological method to the scientific knowledge itself.His thoughts centered the Strong Programme.He introduced the means of Interest Analysis to his thoughts.Finally he made up for the shortage of Strong Programme with Finitism.His thoughts have formed a circle of explanation outside the philosophy of science.Because communities of science couldn't accept his core thoughts,he argued with scientists for a long time and ignited the flame of war between philosophers of science,sociologists of science and positivism scientists.Science War began.There are many similarities between the sources of their thoughts,between the theses they concerned and between their views on the development of science in future.As a result of the divergences on the reality of truth and of the differences between their backgrounds,personalities and styles of language,their logical approach of theories are totally opposite.The difference of their approaches makes it easier for community of natural science to understand and appreciate Feyerabend,but arise an attitude of resistance to David Bloor.No matter which approach they had chosen,they have provided people a new vision to deal with the relationship between science and society by proposing thoughts which focus on irrational elements of knowledge and reject universalism and fundamentalism.They attached importance to the finite latitude of theories' applications,stressed on the sophistication and incommensurability of practice and encouraged people to pay attention to the significance of practice.Those two different approaches of philosophy of science come to the same end by declaring that the emphasis of study in the future must be a return to practice.After all it indicates the bright future of philosophy of scientific practices.Under the guidance of the spirit of “Back to life”,we should look squarely at the conflicts between humanities and natural science.It is a good way to lead History of Science,Philosophy of Science and Sociology of Science to Science Teaching.This tension between theories will improve communication between disciplines and development of humankinds.