Duhem, Quine, Wittgenstein and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Continuity or Self-Legitimating?

Abstract

Contemporary sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is defined by its relativist trend. Its programme often calls for the support of philosophers, such as Duhem, Quine, and Wittgenstein. A critical rereading of key texts shows that the main principles of relativism are only derivable with difficulty. The thesis of the underdetermination of theory doesn't forbid that Duhem, in many places, validates a correspondence-consistency theory of truth. Thus he never says that social beliefs and interests fill the lack of underdetermination. Quine's view on the underdetermination of theory by data leads to Duhem's view. But, to take some examples, his idea of a selective revision of hypotheses, as well as the neat incompatibility between holism and conventionalism, openly challenges the principles of relativism. When reading Wittgenstein's work, which is not presented in book-form but rather as a tree, we have first to avoid aphoristic choices that credit any text-excising. This remark allows us to tackle the passages that sociological relativism is based on. According to Wittgenstein, mathematical conventions seem not to be anthropological objects. Moreover, when Wittgenstein examines the famous language-games, he only speaks of the functioning of natural language, not to be confused with scientific formal languages. We then should render the formula language-game by well-defined, explicit and compulsory rules of communication, this is a much less attractive formula for relativism. Consequently, in terms of contents, there doesn't exist a real continuity between the epistemologies of Duhem, Quine and Wittgenstein, and the recent works of the SSK. Thus we are entitled to wonder whether such references don't simply further the purpose of self-legitimising the programme.