Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:39:20.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Science, Tradition, and the Science of Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Joseph Mali
Joseph Mali
Affiliation:
The institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and IdeasTel Aviv University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Science consists in progress by innovation. Scientists, however, are committed to all kinds of traditions that persist or recur in society regardless of intellectual and institutional changes. Merton's thesis about the origins of the scientific revolution in seventeenth-century England offers a sociohistorical confirmation of this revisionist view: the emergence of a highly rational scientific method out of the religious-ethical sentiments of the English Puritans implies that scientific knowledge does indeed grow out of – and not really against – customary modes of thought.

In tracing the intellectual origins of this view back to the religious controversy between Protestants and Catholics, the essay demonstrates that the essential conflict between them with regard to natural science stemmed from their antagonistic conceptions of tradition and its function in the production of genuine knowledge – of religious as well as of natural affairs. Whereas the Protestants believed only in those truths that are immediately revealed by God to each man through his reason, the Catholics adhered to truths that are related to men or “made” by them through culture and history.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1989 , pp. 143 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, G. A., 1983. “Misunderstanding the Merton Thesis: A Boundary Dispute Between History and Sociology,” Isis 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acton, H. B., 1953. “Tradition and Some Other Forms of Order” Presidential Address, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society(London) 53.Google Scholar
Apel, Karl-Otto, 1963. Die Idee der Sprache in der Tradition des Humanismus: Von Dante bis Vico. Bonn: Bouvier.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah, 1958. “Tradition and the Modern Age,” in her Between Past and Present. New York: Meridian.Google Scholar
Bacon, Francis, 1858–1974. The Works, 14 vols., ed. Spedding, J, Ellis, R. L., and Heath, D. D.. London.Google Scholar
Barnes, Barry, 1985. “Thomas Kuhn,” in The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences, ed. Skinner, Q.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Barry, and Bloor, David, 1982. “Relativism, Rationalism, and the Sociology of Knowledge,” in Rationality and Relativism, ed. Hollis, M, and Lukes, S. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah, 1976. Vico and Herder. London: Hogarth.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah, 1979. “The Divorce Between the Sciences and the Humanities,” in his Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blumenberg, Hans, 1985. Work on Myth, trans. Wallace, R. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bouyer, Louis, 1956. The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, trans. Littledale, A. V.. London: Harvill.Google Scholar
Boyle, Robert, 1772. The Sceptical Chymist, in The Works, ed. Birch, T. London.Google Scholar
Brown, T. M., 1978. “The Rise of Baconianism in Seventeenth-Century England: A Perspective on Science and Society during the Scientific Revolution,” in Science and History: Studies in Honor of Edward Rosen, ed. Hilfstein, E., Czartoryski, P., and Grande, F. D. Studia Copernicana, vol. 16. Wroclaw: Ossolineum.Google Scholar
Burke, Edmund, 1853. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: Bohn's Standard Library.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter, 1985. Vico. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burtt, E. A., 1924. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Butterfield, Herbert, 1951. The Origins of Modern Science 1300–1800. New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Chadwick, Owen, 1957. From Bossuet to Newman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chemnitz, Martin, [1565] 1971. Examination of the Council of Trent, trans. Kramer, F.. St Louis: Concordia Publishing House.Google Scholar
Cognar, Yves M.-J., 1966. Tradition and Traditions. London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, Samuel, 1968. “Is There Reason in Tradition?” in Politics and Experience: Essays Presented to Michael Oakeshott, ed. King, P, and Parekh, B. C.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Deville, R., 1951. “Richard Simon: Critique catholique du Pentateuque” Nouvelle revue théologique, no. 7.Google Scholar
Dillenberger, J., 1960. Protestant Thought and Natural Science: An Historical Interpretation. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Duhem, P. M. M., 1969. To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo, trans. Donald, E., and Maschler, C.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N., 1969. “Some Observations on the Dynamics of Traditions,” Comparative Studies in Society and Culture 11.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S., 1934. “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in his Selected Essays. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda, 1982. “The Mytfi of Simplicity,” in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives, ed. Elkana, Y, and Holton, G. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Euchner, Walter, 1973. Egoismus und Gemeinwohl: Studien zur Geschichte der burgerlichen Philosophie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Feuer, L. S., 1971. “The Social Roots of Einstein's Theory of Relativity” Science Studies 27.Google Scholar
Foster, M. George, 1962. Traditional Cultures and the Impact of Technological Change. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Frie, Hans, 1974. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Funkenstein, Amos, 1986. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 1975. Truth and Method. New York: Seabury Press.Google Scholar
Garin, Eugenio, 1981. “Vico and the Heritage of Renaissance Thought,” in Vico: Past and Present, ed. Tagliacozzo, G. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Gutting, Gary, ed., 1980. Paradigms and Revolutions: Appraisals and Applications of Thomas Kuhn's Philosophy of Science. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich Von, 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hazard, Paul, 1963. The European Mind 1680–1715, trans.May, J. L..Ney York: Meridian.Google Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner, 1975. “Tradition in Science,” in The Nature of Scientific Discovery, ed. Gingerich, O.. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hesse, Mary, 1968. “Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science,” in EssentialArticles for the Study of Francis Bacon, ed. Vickers, B. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher, 1965. The Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E., and Ranger, T., eds., 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holton, Gerald, 1973. Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hooykaas, R., 1956. “Science and Reformation” Journal of World History 3.Google Scholar
Horton, Robin, 1970. “African Traditional Thought and Western Science,” repr. in Rationality and Relativism, ed. Wilson, B.. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Horton, Robin, 1982. “Tradition and Modernity Revisited,” in Rationality and Relativism, ed. Hollis, M., and Lukes, S.. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hull, R., 1929. “The Council of Trent and Tradition” Ecclesiastical Review 81.Google Scholar
Jones, F. R., [1936] 1965. Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Rise of the Scientific Movement in Seventeenth-Century England, 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kelley, R.Donald, 1980. “The Prehistory of Sociology: Montesqieu, Vico, and the Legal Tradition” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 16.Google Scholar
Kemsley, S.Douglas, 1968. “Religious Influences in the Rise of Modern Science” Annals of Science 24.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard, 1981. “Vico's Attempt towards a Humanistic Foundation of Science,” in Vico: Past and Present, ed. Tagliacozzo, G. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
King, M. D., 1971. “Reason, Tradition, and the Progressiveness of Science” History and Theory 10.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas., [1962] 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas, 1968. “The History of Science,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 14. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas, 1977. “The Essential Tension: Tradition and Innovation in Scientific Research,” in his The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Leeuwen, H. G., 1963. The Problem of Certainty in English Thought: 1650–1690. The Hague: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Löith, Karl, 1968. Vico's Grundsatz: Verum et factum convertuntur: Seine theologische Prämisse und deren säkulare Konsequenzen. Heidelberg: C. Winter.Google Scholar
Louth, Andrew, 1983. Discerning the Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McGuire, J. E., and Rattansi, P. M., 1966. “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan’” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London vol. 210.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, Alasdair, 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, Alasdair, 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Mannheim, Karl, 1953. “Conservative Thought,” in his Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mason, , 1953. “The Scientific Revolution and the Protestant Reformation” Annals of Science 9.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K., 1936. “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” American Sociological Review 1.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K., [1938] 1970, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K., 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, John, 1979. “Puritanism and Science: A Reinterpretation” Historical Journal 22: 535–560CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulkay, Michael, 1979. Science and the Sociology of Knowledge. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Nelson, Benjamin, 1964–1966. “The Early Modern Revolution in Science and Philosophy: Fictionalism, Probabilism, Fideism, and Catholic‘Prophetism’,” Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 3. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Newton, Sir Isaac, 1931. Opticks, reprint of the 4th ed. London: G. Bell.Google Scholar
Newton, Sir Isaac, 1934. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, ed. Cajori, F. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
NS, see Vico [1744] 1968.Google Scholar
Oakeshott, Michael, 1947–1948. “Scientific Politics” Cambridge Journal 1.Google Scholar
Oakeshott, Michael, 1962. “Rationalism in Politics,” in his Rationalism in Politics. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Oberman, Heiko, 1986. “Quo Vadis, Petre? Tradition from Irenaeus to Humani Generis,” in his The Dawn of the Reformation. Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.Google Scholar
O'Dea, Thomas, 1972. “The Role of the Intellectual in Catholic Tradition” Daedalus 101.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Robert, 1959. “Tradition and Discovery” American Council of Learned Societies Newsletter 10(8).Google Scholar
Patel, P. J., 1975. “Robert K. Merton's Formulations in Sociology of Science” Sociological Bulletin 24.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A., 1962. “The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry,” in Philosophy, Politics and Society, ed. Laslett, P, and Runciman, W. G., 2d series. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A., 1968. “Time, Institutions and Action: An Essay on Traditions and Their Understanding,” in Politics and Experience: Essays Presented to Michael Oakeshott, ed. King, P. and Parekh, B. C.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael, 1946. Science, Faith, and Society. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael, 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Rout- ledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Pompa, Leon, 1975. Vico: A Study of the “New Science.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Popkin, Richard H., 1974. “Bible Criticism and Social Science,” Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 14. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Popkin, Richard H., 1979. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, 2d ed. Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, Karl, [1948] 1962, “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition,” in his Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Rabb, T. R., 1962. “Puritanism and the Rise of Experimental Science in England” Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale 7.Google Scholar
Rattansi, P. M., 1972. “The Social Interpretation of Science in the Seventeenth Century,” in Science and Society 1600–1900, ed. Mathias, Peter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ravetz, J. R., 1971. Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard, 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rossi, Paolo, 1968. Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, trans. Rabinovitch, S. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Rossi, Paolo, 1984. The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of the Nations from Hooke to Vico, trans. Cochrane, L. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, J.Barbara, 1983. Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Shils, Edward, 1981. Tradition. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Simon, Richard, 1682. A Critical History of the Old Testament. London.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin, 1969. “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” History and Theory 8.Google Scholar
Sprat, Thomas, 1667. History of the Royal Society. London.Google Scholar
Sztompka, Piotr, 1986. Robert K. Merton: An Intellectual Profile. London: MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation London: Burns and Oates.Google Scholar
Tavard, , 1959. Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation. London: Burns and Oates.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles, 1984. “Philosophy and Its History,” in Philosophy in History, ed. Rorty, R, Schneewind, J. B., and Skinner, Q.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles, 1985. “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man,” repr. in Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vico, Giambattista, 1963. The Autobiography, trans. Bergin, T., and Fisch, M. H.. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Vico, Giambattista, [1744] 1968. The New Science, trans. Bergin, T, and Fisch, M. H.. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press. (Reffered to as NS.)Google Scholar
Webster, Charles, 1975. The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Westfall, R. S., 1958. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Winch, Peter, 1964. “Understanding a Primitive Society” international Philosophical Quarterly 1.Google Scholar
Yates, Frances, 1967. “The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science,“ in Art, Science, and History in the Renaissance, ed. Singleton, C. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Ziman, John, 1968. Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social Dimension of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar