What do you think?
Knowledge and Social Imagery
The first edition of this book profoundly challenged and divided students of philosophy, sociology, and the history of science when it was published in 1976. In this second edition, Bloor responds in a substantial new Afterword to the heated debates engendered by his book.
211 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
David Bloor
18 books10 followersDavid Bloor is a British sociologist. He is a professor in, and a former director of, the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh. He is a key figure in the Edinburgh school and played a major role in the development of the field of science and technology studies.
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July 20, 2018
At the end of my last dive into the philosophy of science, I shelved a bunch of books by Bruno Latour. Fortunately, when I revisited the subject this time, some twist of fate pushed me toward this book instead. It seems deeply wrong that this book isn't considered a landmark classic, the watershed moment of modern science studies. Instead, pretty much everyone who writes about the Strong Program, unless they are an adherent of it, treats it as a historical dead end. And indeed, I have found it rather difficult to find publications aligning themselves with this philosophy since the year 2000. Yet in all of those responses and alternative perspectives, none of them seem to identify a fatal flaw or even necessarily understand what the Strong Program actually means.
Which is bizarre, because compared to so much else in both sociology of scientific knowledge specifically (eg Latour and ANT) or postmodernism in general, Bloor is a delight to read. His writing is lucid, his thinking makes revelatory ideas feel obvious, and his ideas end up so eminently reasonable despite some superficial counter-intuition. The effortless manner in with which he anticipates and resolves misunderstandings and points of confusion, and the confidence with which he pushes the argument to apparent extremes to demonstrate its coherence and the need to embrace it completely, seem like they should have shut down a lot of the naysayers and recruited a generation of sociologists to join his program.
Maybe I should back up a bit. The Strong Program is a research agenda for the sociological study of scientific knowledge. Like The Social Construction of Reality, it is a book that claims to be a research agenda for understanding how societies produce certain kinds of knowledge, though in the process and because it is not a case study, ends up being a de facto statement in the philosophy of science (i.e., we can understand all knowledge about reality, or all scientific knowledge, as the output of a social process, and therefore that is actually how those forms of knowledge are constituted). The premise of the Strong Program is simply that sociological explanations must be found for scientific claims we judge both true and false. It is an idea that seems so straightforward to me that it is hard to imagine a viable alternative. How is a sociologist supposed to know what is true and what isn't? Where should she draw the line between the scientific truth and the conceptual expression of that truth? The common answers, that the sociologist should defer to the scientist's own conclusions or to the consensus established by later work in the field, seem at odds with each other. Those problems don't seem to be major obstacles for the intuition of most sociologists and philosophers, however, so what do I know.
The alternative understanding of the situation is a teleological one: certain things are true about reality, and as long as we keep looking in the right way, those truths will guide us to the correct theories. In this view, the practice of science is like consulting an oracle. We set up an experiment very carefully, to pose a certain question, and the universe delivers an unambiguous answer which is not only true, but also weighs in on its own interpretation. Even this example I have to phrase carefully, because the oracle is actually quite enigmatic about the meaning of its truths, even if they are framed in familiar language and relate to familiar problems. For all its putative common sense, I find it difficult to wrap my head around how this traditional view is actually supposed to work.
So in a slightly cheeky move, after Bloor lays out the premises of the Strong Program, he socio-analyzes why people are so resistant to applying science to science. The beginning of this discussion, which lays out a dichotomy between Enlightenment and Romantic ideologies seems to me the weakest aspect of the book, especially because he concludes that both sides could in theory be equally friendly to his approach. The more interesting, if not especially groundbreaking anymore, arguments are first that our culture considers scientific knowledge sacred because it is purified of the bias and subjectivity of scientists. Therefore, turning science on itself risks sullying the purity of the sacred object. There is a certain rhetorical appeal in that framing, but it's a bit too early sociology for me to take too seriously.
The second, more compelling argument is that challenging the existence of objective truth threatens the social authority of science. This is basically undeniable, and it shows very clearly in the way that people like Dawkins talk about relativism abetting pseudoscience or antiscience views. The philosophical validity of scientific realism is less important than the authority it confers on science as an institution. This hypothesis predicts the rejection of relativism should be associated with situations exposed to an epistemologically relevant social conflict (whereas relativism should flourish where science is taken for granted). In some cases, those might be well-intentioned, and the authority of science to be welcomed, as in climate change, conservation, and vaccine debates. However, it also explains why the anti-relativist position has become so common among atheists, who throw themselves into a quixotic battle with religious ideologies.
All of that is fun and more or less interesting. But where the book really makes a meaningful contribution is in showing how mathematics and logic can fall under the same relativist theory. The first leg of this case is to show that the applications of logic conform to social mores. Thus, we accuse a tribal culture of logical inconsistency because of the way they apply their understanding of witchcraft, but fail to impose the same need for logical consistency our own application of the definition of murder. On its own, this isn't a particularly convincing case. It shows how logic is shaped by social power structures, but it fails to show how logic itself cannot be independent of the structures. That is, it's easy for us to conceptualize illogically coherent application of the definition of murder, even if we choose not to apply it that way for social reasons. In combination with the other legs of the argument, it is a bit more convincing.
The main problem in the philosophy of math is the metaphysical status of mathematical concepts. I was having a conversation with someone a few months ago about whether science is socially constructed and whether the same logic can be applied to math, and the reading I did as part of that conversation, came to the conclusion that contemporary philosophers had not resolved this question, and had even come to a sort of dead end on it. Bloor proposes what seems to me a potentially very elegant solution to that intractable debate. He suggests that mathematical concepts are neither physically real nor purely psychological, but rather an elaborated series of metaphors, shared socially and thus with the same metaphysical status as language and other conceptual abstractions. The initial elements of that system are in fact drawn from experience, he argues, but like words, they quickly attain independence in abstraction and find new ways to relate to each other that don't reflect things we can directly experience (though they still bear some relation to empirical reality).
The final leg of the case is to show how math can genuinely differ between cultures. There are some really fascinating examples in this section. One is an analysis of a Greek pre-algebra text which shows how the difference between their math and ours is consistently underestimated because both translators and historians overlook the work they do to reframe their knowledge in our terms. We see that Greek pre-algebra as an incomplete fragment of our algebra because that is how those concepts best translate into our math. The problem is that doing that translation loses information that actually does matter. Another example he gives shows how a different Greek concept completely reframes arithmetic and makes a system we would recognize as nothing more than a curiosity into a central premise. The point is not to show that mathematics is not "real," any more than scientific relativism implies that about the natural world. The point is to show that there is no obvious "complete" endpoint math. Every version conceivable has unique interpretations and limitations.
The final example demonstrates this by showing how a geometric proof is socially contingent. Bloor doesn't deny that a certain set of premises and definitions can create a fixed and undeniable whole. However, what the example illustrates is that the stability of that proof depends completely on agreement with those premises and delimitations of those definitions. Extending a proof that purports to be general to an example that technically meets its definitions but subverts expectations can result in paradox. The conclusion is that math, like science proceeds through a cycle of paradigms. Periods of stability during which proofs are accepted as logically coherent alternate with episodes of new examples forcing proofs to be altered or discarded, then generating new premises and proofs capable of explaining every example.
Collectively, those three legs illustrate how even mathematics and logic cannot meaningfully exist independent of one or another set of decisions and interpretations. Which is frankly a pretty ambitious gauntlet for a book like this to throw. I imagine some people have risen to the challenge, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly where to look for them.
Which is bizarre, because compared to so much else in both sociology of scientific knowledge specifically (eg Latour and ANT) or postmodernism in general, Bloor is a delight to read. His writing is lucid, his thinking makes revelatory ideas feel obvious, and his ideas end up so eminently reasonable despite some superficial counter-intuition. The effortless manner in with which he anticipates and resolves misunderstandings and points of confusion, and the confidence with which he pushes the argument to apparent extremes to demonstrate its coherence and the need to embrace it completely, seem like they should have shut down a lot of the naysayers and recruited a generation of sociologists to join his program.
Maybe I should back up a bit. The Strong Program is a research agenda for the sociological study of scientific knowledge. Like The Social Construction of Reality, it is a book that claims to be a research agenda for understanding how societies produce certain kinds of knowledge, though in the process and because it is not a case study, ends up being a de facto statement in the philosophy of science (i.e., we can understand all knowledge about reality, or all scientific knowledge, as the output of a social process, and therefore that is actually how those forms of knowledge are constituted). The premise of the Strong Program is simply that sociological explanations must be found for scientific claims we judge both true and false. It is an idea that seems so straightforward to me that it is hard to imagine a viable alternative. How is a sociologist supposed to know what is true and what isn't? Where should she draw the line between the scientific truth and the conceptual expression of that truth? The common answers, that the sociologist should defer to the scientist's own conclusions or to the consensus established by later work in the field, seem at odds with each other. Those problems don't seem to be major obstacles for the intuition of most sociologists and philosophers, however, so what do I know.
The alternative understanding of the situation is a teleological one: certain things are true about reality, and as long as we keep looking in the right way, those truths will guide us to the correct theories. In this view, the practice of science is like consulting an oracle. We set up an experiment very carefully, to pose a certain question, and the universe delivers an unambiguous answer which is not only true, but also weighs in on its own interpretation. Even this example I have to phrase carefully, because the oracle is actually quite enigmatic about the meaning of its truths, even if they are framed in familiar language and relate to familiar problems. For all its putative common sense, I find it difficult to wrap my head around how this traditional view is actually supposed to work.
So in a slightly cheeky move, after Bloor lays out the premises of the Strong Program, he socio-analyzes why people are so resistant to applying science to science. The beginning of this discussion, which lays out a dichotomy between Enlightenment and Romantic ideologies seems to me the weakest aspect of the book, especially because he concludes that both sides could in theory be equally friendly to his approach. The more interesting, if not especially groundbreaking anymore, arguments are first that our culture considers scientific knowledge sacred because it is purified of the bias and subjectivity of scientists. Therefore, turning science on itself risks sullying the purity of the sacred object. There is a certain rhetorical appeal in that framing, but it's a bit too early sociology for me to take too seriously.
The second, more compelling argument is that challenging the existence of objective truth threatens the social authority of science. This is basically undeniable, and it shows very clearly in the way that people like Dawkins talk about relativism abetting pseudoscience or antiscience views. The philosophical validity of scientific realism is less important than the authority it confers on science as an institution. This hypothesis predicts the rejection of relativism should be associated with situations exposed to an epistemologically relevant social conflict (whereas relativism should flourish where science is taken for granted). In some cases, those might be well-intentioned, and the authority of science to be welcomed, as in climate change, conservation, and vaccine debates. However, it also explains why the anti-relativist position has become so common among atheists, who throw themselves into a quixotic battle with religious ideologies.
All of that is fun and more or less interesting. But where the book really makes a meaningful contribution is in showing how mathematics and logic can fall under the same relativist theory. The first leg of this case is to show that the applications of logic conform to social mores. Thus, we accuse a tribal culture of logical inconsistency because of the way they apply their understanding of witchcraft, but fail to impose the same need for logical consistency our own application of the definition of murder. On its own, this isn't a particularly convincing case. It shows how logic is shaped by social power structures, but it fails to show how logic itself cannot be independent of the structures. That is, it's easy for us to conceptualize illogically coherent application of the definition of murder, even if we choose not to apply it that way for social reasons. In combination with the other legs of the argument, it is a bit more convincing.
The main problem in the philosophy of math is the metaphysical status of mathematical concepts. I was having a conversation with someone a few months ago about whether science is socially constructed and whether the same logic can be applied to math, and the reading I did as part of that conversation, came to the conclusion that contemporary philosophers had not resolved this question, and had even come to a sort of dead end on it. Bloor proposes what seems to me a potentially very elegant solution to that intractable debate. He suggests that mathematical concepts are neither physically real nor purely psychological, but rather an elaborated series of metaphors, shared socially and thus with the same metaphysical status as language and other conceptual abstractions. The initial elements of that system are in fact drawn from experience, he argues, but like words, they quickly attain independence in abstraction and find new ways to relate to each other that don't reflect things we can directly experience (though they still bear some relation to empirical reality).
The final leg of the case is to show how math can genuinely differ between cultures. There are some really fascinating examples in this section. One is an analysis of a Greek pre-algebra text which shows how the difference between their math and ours is consistently underestimated because both translators and historians overlook the work they do to reframe their knowledge in our terms. We see that Greek pre-algebra as an incomplete fragment of our algebra because that is how those concepts best translate into our math. The problem is that doing that translation loses information that actually does matter. Another example he gives shows how a different Greek concept completely reframes arithmetic and makes a system we would recognize as nothing more than a curiosity into a central premise. The point is not to show that mathematics is not "real," any more than scientific relativism implies that about the natural world. The point is to show that there is no obvious "complete" endpoint math. Every version conceivable has unique interpretations and limitations.
The final example demonstrates this by showing how a geometric proof is socially contingent. Bloor doesn't deny that a certain set of premises and definitions can create a fixed and undeniable whole. However, what the example illustrates is that the stability of that proof depends completely on agreement with those premises and delimitations of those definitions. Extending a proof that purports to be general to an example that technically meets its definitions but subverts expectations can result in paradox. The conclusion is that math, like science proceeds through a cycle of paradigms. Periods of stability during which proofs are accepted as logically coherent alternate with episodes of new examples forcing proofs to be altered or discarded, then generating new premises and proofs capable of explaining every example.
Collectively, those three legs illustrate how even mathematics and logic cannot meaningfully exist independent of one or another set of decisions and interpretations. Which is frankly a pretty ambitious gauntlet for a book like this to throw. I imagine some people have risen to the challenge, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly where to look for them.
March 11, 2020
A classic, very close to my views about science, truth and the world in general. A summary instead of a review because it's too important of a book. There seems to be some problems of self-consistency and I heard there is a great dialogue between him and Latour, but I am taking a break from these readings for now.
Bloor describes the Strong Program in the Sociology of Knowledge (SSK). The main problem he diagnoses is that when we are describing how knowledge works, so how scientists work, we tend to try to find ways to explain why these people didn't see what we see. We tend to think that no explanation is required for the scientist who sees what we see, the supposed truth. There is a hidden teleological presupposition here (that we can instantly spot the truth or the rational) or a blind belief in knowledge that comes from the senses (but if senses alone were enough, knowledge would be individualistic, whereas it's clearly social). It's actually exactly how they used to treat religion. If someone follows the dogma then it's fine since it's self evident, but if she is a heretic then there is some (social) factor that made her a heretic. The SSK wants to treat both views that turn out to be “true” and views that turn out to be false in exactly the same way. It only cares about the causes that lead to adopt these views and how these views end up being considered “true”. This seems to commit them in believing that there is no truth, but it actually doesn't. Just because something caused you to believe something doesn't make that something untrue, but it certainly doesn't make it true either. He still trusts empirical knowledge but in order for it to become complete knowledge, past beliefs are also required and this leads to errors, which are actually the norm. Truth is just a convention, though a useful one for distinguishing what works from what doesn't and for rhetorical purposes. And calling it a convention doesn't make it arbitrary or undemanding.
He thinks that the reason that the hard program is not accepted is that it threatens science and science is actually a model for society, similar to Durkheim claiming that religion was a model for society in the past. There is a deep connection between science and authority and he traces it both in the Popperian and in the Kuhnian view of science. Both use immunizing strategies to preserve it and evade criticism. We can see it those two different models in people and in intellectual traditions. For example, Enlightenment thinking (closer to Popper) is individualistic, talks of social contracts, prioritizes the universal and the timeless, while Romantic thinking (closer to Kuhn) sees social wholes as having special properties and priorities (what's natural is societies, not natural rights; individuals have to be understood in context), prioritizes the concrete and history, thinks that individual cases are more important than abstract principles and blends values with facts. In thought enlightenment thinkers distinguish while the romantics unify by analogy, while in practice enlightenment thinkers unify everything in atomized homogeneity while the romantics take into account the structural division of society. Popper's theory is individualistic, anti-authoritarian, cosmopolitan and uses methodological legislation, while Kuhn's holistic, authoritarian, nationalistic and uses dogma, tradition and judgment (we don't mean that he promotes those values, his theory is more descriptive while Popper's is more prescriptive). We can see these patterns in other areas too, like economics, history, ethics and jurisprudence and he thinks that the structure of language must have something to do with it.
But what's important is that both these programs see knowledge as holy and are compatible both with mystifying strategies and naturalistic ones. It might seem that Kuhnian thinking is more opposed to the SSK but that's because the Popperian one is currently winning. When reacting against the Enlightenment it was the Romantics that used the mystifying strategies to preserve the status quo. The way to avoid those strategies is by making philosophy dynamic. History and society is both the origin and the result of theories, not of abstract principles. For sociology to succeed it has to take for granted its methodology (which is the same as science's) and use it. Knowledge, no matter how much is criticized can't disappear; nobody can commit to its destruction. And no harm will happen with its demystification, like nothing happened with faith. If we are fine with relative ethics we can be fine with relative knowledge too.
Mathematics and logic is where this mystification happens the most so he tries to uncover it. He uses Mill's and Dienes' efforts to answer Frege's objections, in order to show that mathematics are empirical and that alternative mathematics are possible and have existed. We can see it in how different Diophantos' solutions from ours, how the square root of two was not a number for the Ancient Greeks (while now it is an irrational number) and how one was not considered a number for them as it was the building block of numbers (it was also both odd and even). It became a number by an engineer by taking for granted principles like homogeneity and continuity. The Ancient Greeks also used concepts like the gnomon that disappeared for a time, before returning as integer mathematics. There are alternative mathematics then but they are hidden when we are writing their history. And as he explains in the afterword, the natural objection that he is only talking of definitions and not facts is actually exactly what he objects to. What is considered a fact and what is considered a definition constantly changes, so we can't talk of facts. We keep protecting our conception of mathematics and logic, calling outliers paradoxes, like for example the sorites problem. There can be even 3 factor logic. He believes that there might be some natural predisposition towards laws of logic like Modus Ponens but they were also reinforced by social factors.
Similarly, there can be an alternative logic. For example, we assume that a part can never be greater than the whole, but this leads to a paradox with infinite integers and so we decided to put in the definition that a system is infinite if a part of it is equal to the whole. Although it should be irrational, the mathematicians have no problem working with those systems. What compels us is simply what we are used to, that's what rationality is. Another example is a tribe that appears to refuse to accept a logical conclusion. An explanation would be that they institutionalized a logical mistake but actually, they simply decided what are the impossible facts for a case (they believe that witchcraft is inherited but once they find a witch, they do not believe that the whole family are witches) and their logic followed suit. We do exactly the same thing with murder. An alien anthropologist would laugh with our exclusions but it would be wrong for her to say that we act irrationally. We simply decided what's important for us. Even if axioms of logic were innate we still have to decide if we should follow it and that would be a negotiation that's social. Another example is the polyhedra that Lakatos analyzed. Lakatos' examples show that people are not governed by concepts. Ideas have to grow to be useful and that use is not there in their conception. The corrected definition of the polyhedron didn't exist at the start. We are still constrained but by the forces at work in choices. Like in deciding if something is a hat, negotiation is required and it's not a predetermined idea.
He has no problem accepting that the SSK is a form of methodological relativism. Even Popper is open to any theory and the SSK simply examines the factors that lead to the beliefs that form the theories. Science still works and absolute truth might exist but that doesn't mean there is a privileged or final view of it.
Bloor describes the Strong Program in the Sociology of Knowledge (SSK). The main problem he diagnoses is that when we are describing how knowledge works, so how scientists work, we tend to try to find ways to explain why these people didn't see what we see. We tend to think that no explanation is required for the scientist who sees what we see, the supposed truth. There is a hidden teleological presupposition here (that we can instantly spot the truth or the rational) or a blind belief in knowledge that comes from the senses (but if senses alone were enough, knowledge would be individualistic, whereas it's clearly social). It's actually exactly how they used to treat religion. If someone follows the dogma then it's fine since it's self evident, but if she is a heretic then there is some (social) factor that made her a heretic. The SSK wants to treat both views that turn out to be “true” and views that turn out to be false in exactly the same way. It only cares about the causes that lead to adopt these views and how these views end up being considered “true”. This seems to commit them in believing that there is no truth, but it actually doesn't. Just because something caused you to believe something doesn't make that something untrue, but it certainly doesn't make it true either. He still trusts empirical knowledge but in order for it to become complete knowledge, past beliefs are also required and this leads to errors, which are actually the norm. Truth is just a convention, though a useful one for distinguishing what works from what doesn't and for rhetorical purposes. And calling it a convention doesn't make it arbitrary or undemanding.
He thinks that the reason that the hard program is not accepted is that it threatens science and science is actually a model for society, similar to Durkheim claiming that religion was a model for society in the past. There is a deep connection between science and authority and he traces it both in the Popperian and in the Kuhnian view of science. Both use immunizing strategies to preserve it and evade criticism. We can see it those two different models in people and in intellectual traditions. For example, Enlightenment thinking (closer to Popper) is individualistic, talks of social contracts, prioritizes the universal and the timeless, while Romantic thinking (closer to Kuhn) sees social wholes as having special properties and priorities (what's natural is societies, not natural rights; individuals have to be understood in context), prioritizes the concrete and history, thinks that individual cases are more important than abstract principles and blends values with facts. In thought enlightenment thinkers distinguish while the romantics unify by analogy, while in practice enlightenment thinkers unify everything in atomized homogeneity while the romantics take into account the structural division of society. Popper's theory is individualistic, anti-authoritarian, cosmopolitan and uses methodological legislation, while Kuhn's holistic, authoritarian, nationalistic and uses dogma, tradition and judgment (we don't mean that he promotes those values, his theory is more descriptive while Popper's is more prescriptive). We can see these patterns in other areas too, like economics, history, ethics and jurisprudence and he thinks that the structure of language must have something to do with it.
But what's important is that both these programs see knowledge as holy and are compatible both with mystifying strategies and naturalistic ones. It might seem that Kuhnian thinking is more opposed to the SSK but that's because the Popperian one is currently winning. When reacting against the Enlightenment it was the Romantics that used the mystifying strategies to preserve the status quo. The way to avoid those strategies is by making philosophy dynamic. History and society is both the origin and the result of theories, not of abstract principles. For sociology to succeed it has to take for granted its methodology (which is the same as science's) and use it. Knowledge, no matter how much is criticized can't disappear; nobody can commit to its destruction. And no harm will happen with its demystification, like nothing happened with faith. If we are fine with relative ethics we can be fine with relative knowledge too.
Mathematics and logic is where this mystification happens the most so he tries to uncover it. He uses Mill's and Dienes' efforts to answer Frege's objections, in order to show that mathematics are empirical and that alternative mathematics are possible and have existed. We can see it in how different Diophantos' solutions from ours, how the square root of two was not a number for the Ancient Greeks (while now it is an irrational number) and how one was not considered a number for them as it was the building block of numbers (it was also both odd and even). It became a number by an engineer by taking for granted principles like homogeneity and continuity. The Ancient Greeks also used concepts like the gnomon that disappeared for a time, before returning as integer mathematics. There are alternative mathematics then but they are hidden when we are writing their history. And as he explains in the afterword, the natural objection that he is only talking of definitions and not facts is actually exactly what he objects to. What is considered a fact and what is considered a definition constantly changes, so we can't talk of facts. We keep protecting our conception of mathematics and logic, calling outliers paradoxes, like for example the sorites problem. There can be even 3 factor logic. He believes that there might be some natural predisposition towards laws of logic like Modus Ponens but they were also reinforced by social factors.
Similarly, there can be an alternative logic. For example, we assume that a part can never be greater than the whole, but this leads to a paradox with infinite integers and so we decided to put in the definition that a system is infinite if a part of it is equal to the whole. Although it should be irrational, the mathematicians have no problem working with those systems. What compels us is simply what we are used to, that's what rationality is. Another example is a tribe that appears to refuse to accept a logical conclusion. An explanation would be that they institutionalized a logical mistake but actually, they simply decided what are the impossible facts for a case (they believe that witchcraft is inherited but once they find a witch, they do not believe that the whole family are witches) and their logic followed suit. We do exactly the same thing with murder. An alien anthropologist would laugh with our exclusions but it would be wrong for her to say that we act irrationally. We simply decided what's important for us. Even if axioms of logic were innate we still have to decide if we should follow it and that would be a negotiation that's social. Another example is the polyhedra that Lakatos analyzed. Lakatos' examples show that people are not governed by concepts. Ideas have to grow to be useful and that use is not there in their conception. The corrected definition of the polyhedron didn't exist at the start. We are still constrained but by the forces at work in choices. Like in deciding if something is a hat, negotiation is required and it's not a predetermined idea.
He has no problem accepting that the SSK is a form of methodological relativism. Even Popper is open to any theory and the SSK simply examines the factors that lead to the beliefs that form the theories. Science still works and absolute truth might exist but that doesn't mean there is a privileged or final view of it.
July 7, 2013
A field-changing book, Bloor insists that scholars must abandon what he calls a teleological history of science in which we pre-judge historical causality based on current scientific knowledge, thereby reducing the history of science into either a chronicling of scientific/natural agency (which historians aren't useful for) or a history of error. To prevent this, Bloor suggests that we treat historical events symmetrically, that is, we use the same techniques of analysis for scientific findings that we now think are false as we do those that we now think are true. This paves the way for a thoroughly historical account of scientific change.
Bloor's book opened wide the question of agency in histories of science. The problem of natural agency remains one of the major debates in the field today, with writers like Latour and Pickering arguing for its inclusion while other Cambridge-school devotees maintain a firm belief in explaining history of science through the agency of humans, not objects. This book made me think very seriously about how (and whether) I can accept Bloor's critique and still call myself a realist. It's not a trivial problem. Highly recommended for anyone interested in science studies. The first two chapters would make a good assignment for an intro to science studies class.
Bloor's book opened wide the question of agency in histories of science. The problem of natural agency remains one of the major debates in the field today, with writers like Latour and Pickering arguing for its inclusion while other Cambridge-school devotees maintain a firm belief in explaining history of science through the agency of humans, not objects. This book made me think very seriously about how (and whether) I can accept Bloor's critique and still call myself a realist. It's not a trivial problem. Highly recommended for anyone interested in science studies. The first two chapters would make a good assignment for an intro to science studies class.
January 13, 2019
Amidst so many who delusionally regard themselves as critical truth-tellers, here's a work that actually demonstrates courage in in its willingness to unveil the mystification of self-styled defenders of science and absolute truth in favour of a "scientific" study of scientific knowledge itself.
April 22, 2021
Muy interesante, aunque hay que echarle paciencia y disponer de gran capacidad de concentración y de atención para poder comprenderlo.
July 12, 2017
An intellectual and methodological gem. Bloor argues that science and knowledge are socially constructed and proposes a methodology for a more rigorous history of science that is "symmetrical" -- that is, that treats winners and losers in the same analytical terms.
November 12, 2025
Apparently a controversial book, but definitely needs more appreciation. I honestly don't see a problem with the symmetry principle, if accompanied by his further discussion of relativism in Bloor & Barnes 1982.
August 31, 2014
A. Synopsis: There are three major goals of this book. First is to describe the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge. Second, to explore a priori arguments and to bring them to the surface. By doing so, sociological hypotheses about science can be stated. Third, to show how mathematics and logic can be treated sociologically. This is the most difficult hurdle for the sociology of science.
B. The strong programme’s four tenets
1. Causal. What are the conditions which bring about belief or states of knowledge. Social causes are not the only kinds of cause.
2. Impartial. Neither truth, rationality, or success are privileged over false, irrationality, or failure. Both sides require equal explanation and attention.
3. Symmetrical. The explanation would be symmetrical in that the same causes would explain both success and failure.
4. Reflexive. The patterns of explanation would have to be applicable to sociology itself.
C. Hypothesis
1. The hypothesis that must be rejected is that certain forms of science and knowledge can be treated as sacred.
2. Bloor argues that we think about knowledge by manipulating images of society. Social images govern claims of knowledge. An example is the Popper-Kuhn debate. This epistemological debate cannot be understood without seeing it as a deep ideological concern in our culture
a) Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery is about theory creation and the formulation of truth. Once a theory is formulated it must be criticized by empirical and logical test to try to falsify it. If it passes the theory stands for a while. If a theory cannot be tested to see if it is false, then it is not a scientific theory. The image of Darwinian struggle is important for Popper. Science is a never-ending struggle to attain truth where weak theories are eliminated. As a result, science can progress.
b) Kuhn: The main focus of Kuhn’s analysis is the ‘paradigm.’ A paradigm will dominate a scientific profession for a while. ‘Normal science’ will be practiced by the majority of the scientists. But, ‘anomalies’ will eventually occur. When these anomalies mount to a critical point a Gestalt switch will occur, a revolution, and the paradigm will shift. The image of community is what pervades Kuhn’s work. The concept of a revolution periodically overtakes the community.
c) This represents the classic debate between Enlightenment and Romantic ideologies. Popper is classified as an Enlightenment thinker. He treats science as the collection of isolated theories. He is interested in the timeless qualities of good scientific thinking. Kuhn is Romantic in that he always sees individual scientific ideas as part of a whole, a community, or a research tradition.
d) Thus, the hypothesis is proven. Social ideologies and images govern epistemological debates.
D. Sociology of mathematics
1. It seems that mathematics and simple equations embody truths which go beyond sociological influence. This is the so-called ‘standard experience of mathematics.’ Bloor argues that sociology along with psychology can help us understand mathematical knowledge and logical thought.
2. We start with Mill’s Theory of Mathematics. He argues that physical objects, situations, and manipulations can function as models for various basic mathematical operations. Thus, mathematics is a set of beliefs about the physical world.
3. An alternative mathematics. An example of alternative mathematics is with variations in meanings attached to computations. Today the square root of 2 is a number. We call it an irrational number left over from a time when there was considerable concern about the number. This concern was that no fraction p/q could precisely yield the square root of 2. The Greeks argued that for arithmetic the square root of 2 was not a number (is was not a countable number). But for geometry, the square root of two could be represented as a continuous line (the hypotenuse of a right triangle).
4. The point is that certain sociological conditions (a collectively held assumption) alters the meanings of pieces of mathematics.
B. The strong programme’s four tenets
1. Causal. What are the conditions which bring about belief or states of knowledge. Social causes are not the only kinds of cause.
2. Impartial. Neither truth, rationality, or success are privileged over false, irrationality, or failure. Both sides require equal explanation and attention.
3. Symmetrical. The explanation would be symmetrical in that the same causes would explain both success and failure.
4. Reflexive. The patterns of explanation would have to be applicable to sociology itself.
C. Hypothesis
1. The hypothesis that must be rejected is that certain forms of science and knowledge can be treated as sacred.
2. Bloor argues that we think about knowledge by manipulating images of society. Social images govern claims of knowledge. An example is the Popper-Kuhn debate. This epistemological debate cannot be understood without seeing it as a deep ideological concern in our culture
a) Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery is about theory creation and the formulation of truth. Once a theory is formulated it must be criticized by empirical and logical test to try to falsify it. If it passes the theory stands for a while. If a theory cannot be tested to see if it is false, then it is not a scientific theory. The image of Darwinian struggle is important for Popper. Science is a never-ending struggle to attain truth where weak theories are eliminated. As a result, science can progress.
b) Kuhn: The main focus of Kuhn’s analysis is the ‘paradigm.’ A paradigm will dominate a scientific profession for a while. ‘Normal science’ will be practiced by the majority of the scientists. But, ‘anomalies’ will eventually occur. When these anomalies mount to a critical point a Gestalt switch will occur, a revolution, and the paradigm will shift. The image of community is what pervades Kuhn’s work. The concept of a revolution periodically overtakes the community.
c) This represents the classic debate between Enlightenment and Romantic ideologies. Popper is classified as an Enlightenment thinker. He treats science as the collection of isolated theories. He is interested in the timeless qualities of good scientific thinking. Kuhn is Romantic in that he always sees individual scientific ideas as part of a whole, a community, or a research tradition.
d) Thus, the hypothesis is proven. Social ideologies and images govern epistemological debates.
D. Sociology of mathematics
1. It seems that mathematics and simple equations embody truths which go beyond sociological influence. This is the so-called ‘standard experience of mathematics.’ Bloor argues that sociology along with psychology can help us understand mathematical knowledge and logical thought.
2. We start with Mill’s Theory of Mathematics. He argues that physical objects, situations, and manipulations can function as models for various basic mathematical operations. Thus, mathematics is a set of beliefs about the physical world.
3. An alternative mathematics. An example of alternative mathematics is with variations in meanings attached to computations. Today the square root of 2 is a number. We call it an irrational number left over from a time when there was considerable concern about the number. This concern was that no fraction p/q could precisely yield the square root of 2. The Greeks argued that for arithmetic the square root of 2 was not a number (is was not a countable number). But for geometry, the square root of two could be represented as a continuous line (the hypotenuse of a right triangle).
4. The point is that certain sociological conditions (a collectively held assumption) alters the meanings of pieces of mathematics.
September 21, 2025
Challenging ideas but Bloor makes some of his conclusions seem pretty obvious, especially within the first few chapters. I started to have doubts when he spoke about social and empirical theories of math, but I found myself pretty charitable to his arguments and conclusions by the end of it.
March 31, 2015
Challenging ideas, at the same time recommended reading for all science students and scientists.
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