Robert K. Merton: The Celebration and Defense of Science

Science in Context 3 (1):269-289 (1989)
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Abstract

The ArgumentIn Merton's early work in the sociology of science three theses are identified: economic and military influence in shaping early modern science; the “Puritan spur” to scientific activity; the critical role of a democratic social order for the support of science. These themes are located in the contemporary economic crisis of the 1930s, the rise of Nazism and fascism, and the emerging radical and Marxist political activism of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. Merton's interaction with this context is critical for understanding his choice of problems and issues for the nascent sociology of science. The enunciation of the four-part normative structure of science is closely identified with the political ideals of this context. Merton's transition from an interest in problems of science in society to his postwar concern with the social and organizational structures of science and the social behavior of scientists is framed against the anticommunist and anti-Marxist thrust of immediate postwar politics in the United States. The implications of this change for the paradigms of the sociology of science are noted.

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References found in this work

The sociology of science: theoretical and empirical investigations.Robert King Merton - 1973 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Norman W. Storer.
The Social Function of Science.J. Bernal - 1940 - Philosophical Review 49:377.
Science and the social order.Robert K. Merton - 1938 - Philosophy of Science 5 (3):321-337.

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