Utilitățile contextuale ale științei. Cazul genezei științei moderne în secolul al XVII-lea [Articol]

Abstract

In “Preface” to the 1970 edition of Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England, Merton proposes a new integrative model that takes into account both the influence of Puritanism and the pressure of technological problems generated by the economy and the military industry, as well as the mutual relations between these different fields in the process of institutionalizing science. Moreover, the configuration of the social role of the scientist and the social organization of science took place according to the interaction between all these aspects that functioned as resources for the development of science and that mutually enhanced each other as science itself became institutionalized. Merton introduces the explanatory hypothesis according to which all these different fields provide arguments for the utility of science. Starting from his proposed case study, Merton introduces a pluralistic concept of the utility of science broken down into the some categories of utilities.