We have analyzed the problem of group rationality and outlined four theories – the skeptical view, the two versions of the subjectivist view, and the objectivist view – that address that problem. These views focused on the group of scientists, not on the individual scientist; in particular, they focused on group rationality rather than on individual rationality. It is imperative that we examine the notion of the rationality of an individual scientist to see what bearing, if any, it would have on group rationality. A closer examination of individual rationality might unhappily reveal that it – individual rationality – rests on rather shaky grounds. Perhaps not. Given the fundamental work of Hilary Putnam on this notion, we can no longer be sanguine about it. If the notion of individual rationality is suspect, or utterly unclear, our task would become enormously complicated. For how could a shaky, unsettled notion of individual rationality provide what scientists need – let alone provide all the scientists the same reason – to cohere into a group?

Drawing upon the later philosophy of Putnam, I show in the first two sections that analogous to the problem of what moral vision should be harnessed to civil society (one to which Putnam offers a solution) is the problem of what scientific image ought to be wedded to the society of scientists.