Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce a book just released about scientific controversies.

The following is a summary of the topics:

Scientific Controversies. A Socio-historical Perspective on the Advancement of Science. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2015, xxii+298 pp.

By Dominique Raynaud.

Translated by Lisa C. Chien with a Preface by Mario Bunge.

Scientific Controversies show how organized debates in the sciences help us establish or verify our knowledge of the world. If debates focus on form, scientific controversies are akin to public debates that can be understood within the framework of theories of conflict. If they focus on content, then such controversies have to do with a specific activity and address the nature of science itself. Understanding the major focus of a scientific controversy is a first step toward understanding these debates and assessing their merits.

Controversies of unique socio-historic context, disciplines, and characteristics are examined: Pasteur’s germ theory and Pouchet’s theory of spontaneous generation; vitalism advocated at Montpellier versus experimental medicine in Paris; the science of optics about the propagation of visual rays; the origins of relativism (the Duhem-Quine problem). Touching on the work of Boudon, Popper, and others, Raynaud puts forward an incrementalist theory about the advancement of science through scientific controversies.

These debates share in common their pivotal importance to the history of the sciences. By understanding the role of controversy, we better understand the functioning of science and the stakes of the contemporary scientific debates.

This book is an expanded version of a work previously published by the Presses universitaires de France. It includes a detailed chronicle for Chapter 3 (The Vitalism-Organicism Controversy) and new Chapter 5 (Samarqandī’s Native Theory of Controversies). The Epistemological Conclusions have been elaborated further to better reflect the role of incrementalism in the pursuit of truth.

About the Author:

Dominique Raynaud is a sociologist and science historian at the Université of Grenoble, France. He is the author of several articles and books in the field, among which are Sociology and Its Scientific Vocation (Paris, 2006) and Optics and the Rise of Perspective. A Study in Network Knowledge Diffusion (Oxford, 2014).

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Introduction: Controversies at the Crossroads of two Specialties

1. The Sociology of Science

2. The Sociology of Conflict

3. Elements for a Classification

1. The Object

2. Polarity

3. Extent

4. Intensity

5. Duration

6. Forum

7. Recognition

8. Settlement

Chapter 1. Relativism and Rationalism: A Metacontroversy

1. The Guiding Notions in the Debate

1. The Relativist Approach

2. The Rationalist Approach

2. The Debate within the Sociology of the Sciences

1. The Relativist Arguments

2. The Rationalist Arguments

3. Relativists versus Rationalists: The Place of Controversies

Chapter 2. The Controversy between Pasteur and Pouchet: An Essay on the Principle of Accumulated Asymmetries

1. A Chronicle of the Controversy

2. An Inventory of Asymmetries

1. Ambiguous Asymmetries

1. Parisian versus provincial

2. Corresponding member versus full member of the French academy of science

3. Close versus distant ties with the emperor

4. Researchers acting in good or bad faith

2. Hidden Asymmetries

1. Professional versus dilettante

2. Well-established researcher versus young aspiring researcher

3. Prolific versus modestly productive researcher

4. Scientific style: Demonstration versus illustration

5. The skeptical versus committed attitude

6. Upstanding researcher versus dishonest counterfeiter

3. The Social Conditioning of Science

1. Pasteur and Pouchet

2. The family of the Heterogenists

3. Theology and spontaneous generation

4. Conclusions

Chapter 3. The Vitalism-Organicism Controversy between Paris and Montpellier: An Essay on the Social Determination of Knowledge

1. A Chronicle of the Controversy

2. The Prestige of the School of Montpellier

1. Student Enrollment

2. Access to Knowledge

3. Sociohistorical Analysis

1. Internal Factors

1. The interpretation of the clinical signs

2. The methods

3. Doctrine

2. External Factors

1. Scientific productivity

2. The philosophical presuppositions

3. The institutional framework

4. Professional interests

5. Political valuers and institutional affiliations

4. Conclusions

1. Productivity and Scientific Content

2. The Failure of the Notion of Determination

Chapter 4. Intromission versus Extramission in Oxford: An Essay on the Norms of Rationality

1. Extramission versus Intromission

1. The Thesis of Extramission

1. The existence of phosphenes

2. The selectivity of the eye

3. The spherical form of the eye

4. The phosphorescence of the eye of the feline

5. The corruption of mirrors

6. The recessing of the eye

2. The Thesis of Intromission

1. The absence of night vision in man

2. The pain caused by bright light

3. The absence of instantaneous propagation of light

4. The impossibility of immensely long visual rays

2. The Arguments Presented by the Three Oxonians

1. The Position of Grosseteste

2. The Position of Bacon

3. The Position of Pecham

3. Sociohistorical Analysis

1. The Medieval Norms of Rationality

2. The Authority of Saint Augustine

3. Questions about Authority

4. A Rational Choice?

4. Conclusions

Chapter 5. Al-Samarqandī’s Native Theory of Controversies: An Essay on the Negotiation of Truth

1. Science, Politics, and Negotiation

2. Samarqandī’s Theory of the Scholarly Dispute

1. Samarqandī’s Interest in the Nature and Resolution of Controversies

2. Samarqandī’s Juridical Model

3. Two Antinomic Models

1. The Order of the Debate

2. The Weapons of the Disputant

3. The Settlement of Controversies

4. Conclusions

1. Samarqandī’s Internal Epistemology

2. Samarqandī’s Indifference to the Negotiation of Truth

3. Samarqandī’s Juridical Model

4. A Contribution to the Analysis of the Settlement of Controversies

Chapter 6. The SSK in the Name of Prestigious Ancestors: Duhem, Quine and Wittgenstein

1. Pierre Duhem

1. Epistemic Holism

First argument

Second argument

2. Underdetermination of Theory

First argument

Second argument

2. Willard Quine

1. Epistemic Holism

First argument

Second argument

Third argument

2. Underdetermination of Theory

First argument

Second argument

Third argument

3. Ludwig Wittgenstein

1. The Conventional Nature of Knowledge

2. The Language-Games

First argument

Second argument

Third argument

4. Conclusions

Conclusion: Toward an Epistemological Incrementalism

1. Sociological Conclusion

1. Interests and Values

1. Why should values be introduced into a model of controversies?

2. In whant way do scientific controversies differ from other forms of conflict?

2. Cognitive Interests and Values

2. Epistemological Conclusions

1. The Falsificationist Thesis

2. Falsificationism versus Verificationism?

Case 1. The faulty logical framework does not ruin the conclusion

Case 2. The faulty logical framework does ruin the conclusion

3. Toward Incrementalism

Appendices

Appendix 1: The Works published by Pasteur and Pouchet

Appendix 2: The Primary Archives on the Pasteur-Pouchet Debate

Appendix 3: Excerpts from Pouchet’s correspondence

Appendix 4: The Works published by the supporters of vitalism and organicism

Bibliography

Index rerum

Index nominum

Scientific Controversies. A Socio-Historical Perspective on the Advancement of Science

Order online at http://www.transactionpub.com/title/Scientific-Controversies-978-1-4128-5571-6.html

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Wishing you a pleasant reading!

Sincerely yours,

Dominique Raynaud

Université de Grenoble Alpes

UFR SHS

Domaine universitaire

38040 Grenoble Cedex 9

https://upmf-grenoble.academia.edu/dominiqueraynaud