Volume 56, Issue 1, 2019
Petr S. Kusliy
Pages 116-132
Is Science Epistemically Autonomous?
An Overview of Some Contemporary Discussions
In this overview of recent works in philosophy of science, the discussions of the nature of scientific rationalism and epistemic normativity of science are presented as taking place between the two extremes: the radical anarchism of social constructivism that claims that science has no epistemic normativity of its own and complete isolationism, according to which the rationalist norms of science are totally immune to any influence of non-scientific context. The author explores the arguments of the conception of social empiricism, according to which irrationality in the actions of individual scientists as well as in their motivation need not entail irrationality of science as a social enterprise because the factor of consensus plays a role in forming the picture of the world that ends up being accepted by the scientific community. The feminist attack on the traditional ethos of scientist is discussed. It is shown that feminist criticism revealed the hidden biases in what seemed to be a bias-free scientific worldview. However, some counterarguments against egalitarian principles of organization of science are also mentioned. Rudner’s hypothesis according to which the comparison of different pieces of evidence on the scale of credibility is always ethically biased is discussed and its influence on the contemporary philosophy of science is explored. Finally, the author presents some recent arguments that suggest that contextual influence on science can be legitimate and illegitimate.