Criticism
In order to study scientific knowledge from a sociological point of view, the strong programme has adhered to a form of radical relativism. In other words, it argues that – in the social study of institutionalised beliefs about ‘truth’ – it would be unwise to use 'truth' as an explanatory resource. That would be to include the answer as part of the question (Barnes 1992), not to mention a thoroughly 'whiggish' approach towards the study of history – that is an approach seeing human history as an inevitable march towards truth and enlightenment. Alan Sokal has criticised radical relativism as part of the Science wars, on the basis that such an understanding will lead inevitably towards solipsism and postmodernism. Strong programme scholars insist that their approach has been misunderstood by such a criticism and that its adherence to radical relativism is strictly methodological.
Read more about this topic: Strong Programme
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)