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Relativism - What Now?Author(s): Karin D. Knorr-CetinaSource: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 133-136Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/284888
Accessed: 10/05/2010 14:35
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Responses
and
Replies:
Knorr-Cetina:
Response
to
Collins
133
Relativism
-
What
Now?
Karin
D.
Knorr-Cetina
Sociology
is
a latecomer to the relativist
movement,
as it has
been
late in
growing
sen-
sitive to the need
of
decentring sociological reasoning.1
Anthropology, history,
linguistics
and
philosophy,
all
appear
to
have encountered
stages
of relativism
long
before
sociology.
When
a
broadside
of
relativism
finally
hit
sociology
at
the
hands
of
Mannheimand
Scheler,
it
stopped
short of
one of
the
most valued social
phenomena
of
our
civilization
-
the
natural sciences. To be
sure,
history,
too,
has been
late
in
apply-
ing
its
otherwise
longstanding
relativist
nclinations to the
study
of natural science. But
it nevertheless
preceded
sociology
by
decades. Not
only
Kuhn and
his
followers
(1
962),
but also
much earlier authors
such
as
Duhem
(1914)
and Bachelard
(1934),
have
been
undermining
inductivist
historiography
of
science
for
quite
some
time
now.2
Philosophy,
too,
has
long recognized
the
pro-relativist
implications
of
the
fact
that
empirical
observations
themselves cannot
conclusively
establish
a
theoretical inter-
pretation,
and
thus
cannot
in
and
of themselves
account for the
acceptance
or truth of
a
knowledge
claim.
At the turn of
the
century,
Peirce discussed
the
problem
that
there
are
in
principlealways
an
infinite number of
theoretical
assumptions
to which one
can
resort in
order to
account
for
a
body
of
data,
thus
initiating
the instrumentalist
in-
terpretation
of
science
by
the
pragmatists.3
The
problem
has
since
received much
at-
tention
by
Duhem and
Quine,
and has
come to be
referred to as
the
underdetermina-
tion of
theory
by
data.
Feyerabend,
Kuhn and
Toulmin,
among
many
other
historians,
have
provided
well-known
illustrations
of the
oscillations of
context-
dependent
criteria,
and
of the
fluid
negotiations,
which result
from
underdetermina-
tion.4
It was
nevertheless
necessary
and
highly
commendable for
sociologists
to
begin
to
document the
consequences
of
underdetermination in
contemporary
natural
science
-
that
is,
to
study
the
formation of
technical consensus
among present
natural
scien-
tists.
First,
and
despite
the
existing
historical
illustrations,
there
is
still
a
battle to
be
fought
in
sociology
(and
in
other
fields) against
the standard
empiricist
account
of
science.
Second,
it
was
after
all
to be
hoped
that their
privileged
access
to real life
data
would
enable
sociologists
of
science to arrive
at
(social)
mechanisms
of
consensus
for-
mation
which
escape,
or are of
no
concern
to,
the
historiography
of
science.
It is
this,
I
suppose,
which
Harry
Collins has in
mind
when
he
talks about
the
second
stage
of the
relativist
programme
as
concerned with the
description
of the
mechanisms
which
limit
the
infinite
interpretative
flexibility
illustrated
by
the
contributions to
his
Special
Issue.5
But
alas,
have
we
really
made
any
progress
in
this
direction?
Surely
what
we had in
Social
Studies of
Science
(SAGE,
London
and
Beverly
Hills),
Vol. 12
(1982),
133-36
8/9/2019 Knorr-cetina, k. - Relativism - What Now?
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134
Social
Studies
of
Science
mind
in terms of
(social)
mechanisms was
more,
or
something
else,
than the famous
principle
of coherence alluded to
by
several contributors
to
the
relativist
programme;
that
is
to
say,
the
principle
that
accordance with
previously accepted knowledge
seems
to
enhance
the
plausibility
of new
knowledge
claims? It is
my suspicion
that
pro-
ponents
of
today s
version of the
empiricist
account of science will find
much
support
in
Harry s
Special
Issue for what Hesse calls their
convergence
formula
-
that
is,
the
idea
that
accumulating
data
plus
coherence
conditions
ultimately converge
to
real
scientific
progress.
And I
suspect
that
they
would
unhesitatingly
qualify
as rational
what the authors
in
that
Issue tend
to
call social
-
namely,
the formation of consen-
sus on the basis of
accumulating experimental
evidence
(though
no
single experiment
is inviolable to criticism
and
rejection),
and on the basis
of
the coherence of ex-
perimental
results with
pre-existing
accepted knowledge
claims
(which
act as bench-
marks
for,
and
constraints
on,
future
interpretations).6
If
my suspicions
turn
out
to be
correct,
this could of course mean that
we had a case
of
highly significant,
and
apparently
unprecedented, convergence
between
ra-
tionalist/empiricist
philosophers
of science and relativist
sociologists
of science.
But it
could
also mean that the
relativist
programme,
as
specified
by Harry,
has
yet
to over-
come
a weakness which
may
well be inherent
in
its
approach.
Relativism
in the social
sciences
has
always
been
at its best when it
fought
holy
battles
against
various brands
of ethnocentric
absolutism
dedicated
to our
(as
opposed
to
primitive)
civilization,
to
our
logic
and
rationality
(as
opposed
to
primitive thinking),
or
last,
but not
least,
to
our science.
Its
best is when
it
testified
empirically
to the
irrelevance,
or
indeed non-
existence,
of the
principles postulated
by
the absolutist
doctrine. Relativism has not
been
at its best when
called
upon
to
specify
the concrete
mechanisms
which allow
for
an alternative
account
of social
reality.
And
how could
it
be? If these
mechanisms,
as
Feyerabend
said
again
and
again
in
regard
to
science,
are constituted
afresh
within
each research
tradition,
what
general
patterns
could
we
arrive at? To
paraphrase
Winch,
if these mechanisms
exist
only
in and
through
the ideas
which
impose
themselves
in
a
particular
social
context,
does
it not follow
that
they
must be
an
un-
suitable
subject
for
generalizations?7
It is
my impression
hat
proponents
of
a relativist
programme,
whenever
hey
did
move
to
establish the
substantial
characteristics
of a field of
study (as
in
anthropology
and
linguistics),
quickly
abandoned their
original
relativist
preoccupation
in order to im-
merse
themselves
in the
study
of the
intricate structures
and
processes
of their
do-
mains.
Of
course,
the contributors
to
Harry s Special
Issue
have
already
demonstrated
in
their
relativist
programme
that
they
are
admirably
skilled
in the detailed
documen-
tation of
the
processes
of
negotiation
which surround
experimental
observation .
What
if
they
now
turned
their
attention
from
demonstrating
that
such
negotiations
ex-
ist
to how
the
postulated
social
process
of
persuasion
works
and
is embodied
in
scien-
tists
(and
sociologists )
reasoning?
After
all,
precedences
for
such endeavours
do
exist,
not
only
in
microscopically
oriented
historical studies
or
in
recent
micro-sociology
(ethnography)
of
knowledge,
but also
in
other
publications
of
Special
Issue
con-
tributors such as Andrew Pickering himself.8 What if the fate of relativism in em-
pirical
social
science
is not
so
much to
provide
a solution
to
these
sciences
questions
than
to be
a
stage
in their
development?
Indeed,
it
might
well
count
as the
greatest
point
of
success
of a relativist
programme
when
its
proponents
decide
to shift
their
focus of
attention
away
from their
original
relativist
(that
is, anti-absolutist)
concerns.
I
hasten
to
add that
I
have
had
in
the
past,
and continue
to
have,
a
great
deal of
in-
terest
and
appreciation
for meticulous
documents
of
scientific
everyday
life
such
as
8/9/2019 Knorr-cetina, k. - Relativism - What Now?
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Responses
and
Replies:
Knorr-Cetina:
Response
to Collins
those
by Harry Collins,
Bill
Harvey,
Andrew
Pickering,
Trevor
Pinch
and
David
Travis in
the
Special
Issue;
and
that
I
have
to admit to some version of
methodological
relativism
myself...
NOTES
1.
The
whole issue is
best illustrated in
anthropological
rather
than
sociological
discussions,
for
example by
the
polemic
which has
accompanied
the rise of
ethno-
science
(the
most
thorough
attempt
to this date
to
decentre a social
science and
make
it relative
to the
subjects
it
studies).
See for
example
G.M.
Shoepfle
et
al.,
Opera-
tional
Analysis
of
Culture
and
the
Operation
of
Ethnography:
A
Reconciliation ,
Com-
munication and
Cognition,
Vol.
7
(1974),
379-406.
2.
P.
Duhem,
The Aim
and
Structure
of
Physical
Theory
(Princeton,
NJ:
Princeton
University
Press, 1954;
originally published
in
French
in
Paris,
1914);
G.
Bachelard,
Le
nouvel
esprit
scientifique
(Paris:
Presses
Universitaires de
France,
1934).
3.
C.S.
Peirce,
Collected
Papers,
Vol.
1
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard
University
Press,
1931-35),
450,
on de
Morgan.
4.
See
particularly
W.v.O.
Quine,
Word and
Object
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
The
MIT
Press,
1960)
and
Ontological
Relativity
and
Other
Essays
(New
York:
Columbia
University
Press,
1969).
See also
Duhem,
op
cit.
note
2,
and S.
Shapin s
review
of
relevant
historical
studies,
History
of
Science and its
Sociological
Reconstruc-
tions ,
History
of
Science,
Vol. 20
(1982),
in
press.
5. H.M.
Collins,
Introduction:
Stages
in
the
Empirical
Programme
of
Relativism,
Social
Studies
of
Science,
Vol.
11
(1981),
4.
6.
Reference
to such
a
coherence
condition
is
exemplified
in
the
Special
Issue
by
Pickering s
benchmarks ,
which he
defines as
socially agreed
properties
of the
world
which
structure
later debates
about
experimental outcomes,
or
by
Harvey s
reference
to
physicists
immersion in the
culture of
physics
which
strongly
favoured the
theory
of
quantum
mechanics.
See A.
Pickering,
Constraints on
Controversy:
The
Case
of the
Magnetic
Monopole ,
Social
Studies
of Science,
Vol. 11
(1981),
66ff;
B.
Harvey,
Plausibility
and
the
Evaluation
of
Knowledge:
A
Case
Study
of
Experimental
Quan-
tum
Mechanics ,
Social
Studies
of
Science,
Vol. 11
(1981),
106ff.
It
may
not be
sur-
prising
that there is
an
interesting
similarity
between
Popper s
talk
about
verisimilitude and
the
process
of
accumulating
evidence
plus
coherence
which
emerges
from
these
papers.
For
the
convergence
formula
see M.
Hesse,
Revolutions
and
Reconstructions in
the
Philosophy
of
Science
(Brighton,
Sussex:
Harvester
Press;
Bloomington,
Ind.:
Indiana
University
press,
1980),
viii.
7.
For
one
of
the last
statements
of
Feyerabend
in
this
regard,
see his
More
Clothes from the
Emperor s
Bargain
Basement ,
Review of
Larry
Laudan s
Progress
and its
Problems,
British
Journalfor
the
Philosophy of
Science,
Vol.
32
(1981),
62.
See
also
P.
Winch,
The Idea
of
Social
Science ,
in
B.
Wilson
(ed.),
Rationality (Oxford:
Basil
Blackwell,
1974),
15. It
should
be
noted,
however,
that
neither
Feyerabend
nor
Winch
despaired
of
the
possibility
of
generalizations
in
sociology,
though
Winch in
particular
had
of
course his
own
views
about
what
they
should
look
like.
8. I
have in
mind
Pickering s
work
on
cognitive
interests and
their
role in
explain-
135
8/9/2019 Knorr-cetina, k. - Relativism - What Now?
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Social Studies
of
Science
ocial Studies
of
Science
ing
how
interpretative flexibility
comes to a
close
(cited
in his
contribution).
For rele-
vant historical
studies,
many
of which
go
beyond
a
demonstration of the existence
of
underdetermination,
see note
4,
particularly
Shapin s
review. Most recent
ethnographies
of
knowledge
make a similar
attempt,
whatever one thinks
about
the
success of the endeavour. See for
example
B.
Latour
and S.
Woolgar, Laboratory
Life:
The Social
Construction
of Scientific
Facts
(Beverly
Hills,
Calif.:
Sage,
1979),
who
resort to fictionalism to
escape
from
relativismand
objectivism;
M.
Zenzen and S.
Restivo,
The
Mysterious
Morphology
of
Immiscible
Liquids:
A
Study
of
Scientific
Practice
(Troy,
NY:
Department
of
Anthropology
and
Sociology,
Rensselaer
Polytechnic
Institute,
1981,
unpublished
mimeo);
R.
Williams and J.
Law,
Beyond
the Bounds of
Credibility ,
Fundamenta
Scientiae,
Vol.
1
(1980),
295-315;
Law and
Williams,
Putting
Facts
Together:
A
Study
of Scientific
Persuasion ,
Social Studies
of
Science
(forthcoming);
and
my
own
study,
The
Manufacture
of
Knowledge:
An
Essay
on the Constructivist
and Contextual
Nature
of
Science
(Oxford:
Pergamon
Press,
1981),
where
I
propose
a
scientific
constructivism,
rather than relativism.
Author s
address:
Center
for the
Study
of Science
in
Society,
Virginia
Tech and State
University,
Blacksburg,
VA
24061,
USA.
Responses
and
Replies
(continued)
Collins s
Programme
and
the
Hardest
Possible
Case
Daryl
E. Chubin
Every
research
programme
must
have
its
boundaries,
and the
empirical
programme
of
relativism
is
no
exception.
But let s
call a
boundary
a
boundary,
and not a
third
stage .
My
insistence
distinguishes
me from commentators who
may
miss
the
empirical
face...
altogether
in order
to save their own.
Still,
I
must frown on at
least
one-third
of
Collins s
programme
face.
In the introduction to the Special Issue on Knowledge and Controversy, Collins
states that:
... the consensual
interpretation
of
day-to-day
laboratory
work is
only possible
within constraints
coming
from
outside
that
work....
The
missing
link is the
ing
how
interpretative flexibility
comes to a
close
(cited
in his
contribution).
For rele-
vant historical
studies,
many
of which
go
beyond
a
demonstration of the existence
of
underdetermination,
see note
4,
particularly
Shapin s
review. Most recent
ethnographies
of
knowledge
make a similar
attempt,
whatever one thinks
about
the
success of the endeavour. See for
example
B.
Latour
and S.
Woolgar, Laboratory
Life:
The Social
Construction
of Scientific
Facts
(Beverly
Hills,
Calif.:
Sage,
1979),
who
resort to fictionalism to
escape
from
relativismand
objectivism;
M.
Zenzen and S.
Restivo,
The
Mysterious
Morphology
of
Immiscible
Liquids:
A
Study
of
Scientific
Practice
(Troy,
NY:
Department
of
Anthropology
and
Sociology,
Rensselaer
Polytechnic
Institute,
1981,
unpublished
mimeo);
R.
Williams and J.
Law,
Beyond
the Bounds of
Credibility ,
Fundamenta
Scientiae,
Vol.
1
(1980),
295-315;
Law and
Williams,
Putting
Facts
Together:
A
Study
of Scientific
Persuasion ,
Social Studies
of
Science
(forthcoming);
and
my
own
study,
The
Manufacture
of
Knowledge:
An
Essay
on the Constructivist
and Contextual
Nature
of
Science
(Oxford:
Pergamon
Press,
1981),
where
I
propose
a
scientific
constructivism,
rather than relativism.
Author s
address:
Center
for the
Study
of Science
in
Society,
Virginia
Tech and State
University,
Blacksburg,
VA
24061,
USA.
Responses
and
Replies
(continued)
Collins s
Programme
and
the
Hardest
Possible
Case
Daryl
E. Chubin
Every
research
programme
must
have
its
boundaries,
and the
empirical
programme
of
relativism
is
no
exception.
But let s
call a
boundary
a
boundary,
and not a
third
stage .
My
insistence
distinguishes
me from commentators who
may
miss
the
empirical
face...
altogether
in order
to save their own.
Still,
I
must frown on at
least
one-third
of
Collins s
programme
face.
In the introduction to the Special Issue on Knowledge and Controversy, Collins
states that:
... the consensual
interpretation
of
day-to-day
laboratory
work is
only possible
within constraints
coming
from
outside
that
work....
The
missing
link is the
Social
Studies
of
Science
(SAGE,
London and
Beverly
Hills),
Vol. 12
(1982),
136-39
ocial
Studies
of
Science
(SAGE,
London and
Beverly
Hills),
Vol. 12
(1982),
136-39
13636
