International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 121

rulers—a type of order, not disorder. Does Feyerabend not realise how anarchists
understand anarchism, or is he playing an intricate game over the dual meanings of
anarchism? Whatever the answer, one message is not to take Feyerabend too literally,
and to loosen up and think for yourself.
BRIAN MARTIN
Arts Faculty
University of Wollongong
# 2012, Brian Martin

Science Studies as Naturalized Philosophy

FINN COLLIN
Dordecht, Springer, 2011
xiii + 247 pp., ISBN 9789048197408, E104.00, US$139.00 (hardback)

Finn Collin’s book is yet another attempt to debunk social constructivism. His thesis is
that the constructivist commitments of science studies conflict with its naturalistic
scientism. He begins with a sweeping history of philosophical naturalism, beginning
on page 1 with Plato and already reaching Mach by page 4. I admire the ambition,
but this is just too quick. Things become more interesting when Collin slows down,
tracing the course from the Vienna Circle through to the Strong Programme in the soci-
ology of scientific knowledge. This is a lamentably unexplored topic, and Collin is to be
commended for, however briefly, taking it on. I add two thoughts. First, as George Reisch
(2005) and Alan Richardson (2007) have shown, and as work by Elisabeth Nemeth and
Thomas Uebel, among others, also suggests, we have forgotten what the early logical
empiricists were actually all about. Second, David Bloor (2011) has recently argued
that the relativism of the Strong Programme fits hand in glove with the relativism of
Philipp Frank. Who was Frank? A member of the Vienna Circle, a physicist who suc-
ceeded Einstein in his chair in Prague, and the first president of the Philosophy of
Science Association. Was Frank a forefather of the Strong Programme? Discuss.
Let me turn now to Collin’s criticism of the Strong Programme. On behalf of ‘the
majority of scientists’, and against the Strong Programme and its fellow-travellers,
Collin argues that ‘science is not a confidence trick, but enjoys genuine and well-
earned authority’ (203). Strikingly, no member of the Strong Programme has ever
admitted their desire to put the hatchet to science, but this fact slows Collin down
no more than it has critics in the past. On Collin’s reading, members of the Strong Pro-
gramme must keep their hatchet hidden well under their coats, lest they undermine
their own cynical attempt to acquire influence by applying the very methods of the
science whose authority they secretly reject (199). Referring specifically to the work
of Bloor, Collin writes that ‘there was clearly from the outset a whiff of incoherency
in the Strong Programme. Science is invoked for the purpose of undermining
science’ (200). According to Collin, the hatchet job on science, pursued in underhand
fashion by members of the Strong Programme, ‘is testified to by the fervour with
122 Book Reviews
which the project of naturalized philosophy was pursued’ (199). In developing their
naturalistic position, Strong Programme theorists drew heavily on the rule-following
considerations of Ludwig Wittgenstein (199). On a Wittgensteinian interpretation,
science should be treated as social through and through. As a result, ‘[s]cience
would be cut down to its proper size, that is, as one societal institution among
others’ (200). To place science on a par with other social institutions is, in Collin’s
view, to put the hatchet to it. But this argument is fallacious. Consider an example.
If one community consistently outperforms another on a range of standardized
intelligence tests, and if we explain their legitimate success in sociological terms,
have we thereby denigrated their outstanding achievement, or revealed their cognitive
superiority to be a mere charade based on a confidence trick? Of course not. And so
why should it be any different when the outstanding cognitive achievements of the
scientific community are also subject to sociological explanation? Such explanations
neither debunk science, nor rob it of its justly earned cognitive authority. What they
do do, however, is frustrate attempts by the epistemically privileged to cloak the
social basis of their authority behind such obfuscatory, quasi-metaphysical terms as
‘genius’, ‘inspiration’, or ‘a priori rational insight’. The point is that science is hard
work. Anyone with normal human capacities, and the ability and desire to roll up
their sleeves, should be able to contribute. I cannot imagine how any respectable
philosopher of science should wish to dispute this claim. Certainly Collin would
not. He has simply missed the point. It is not the cognitive authority of science that
is being challenged, but the attempts, unwitting or otherwise, by epistemic profiteers
to exclude perceived outsiders from sharing in this marvellously successful human
enterprise. The absurd claim that the Strong Programme is bent on undermining
the authority of science has had many stakes driven through its heart over the years.
Now that I have added my own, I should like to quickly move on before the corpse
rises up again, as it surely will.
Turn, then, to the significance of Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations for
the Strong Programme. On a common reading, Wittgenstein argues that successful
rule-following is not caused by some individual fact about the rule follower—Jones
successfully adds because he grasps the rule for addition—but rather by the rule fol-
lower’s participation in a community of adders—Jones successfully adds because he
comes up with the same answers as we do. One cannot follow a rule privately, but
only as a member of a community. Bloor captures Wittgenstein’s idea in the claim
that rules are ‘social institutions’. Sociologists of scientific knowledge study the way
in which such social institutions govern successful scientific practice.
According to Collin, a sociological account of rule-following cannot explain how a
community of enquirers might go wrong (71). He invites us to imagine a team of che-
mists who predict, on the basis of their preferred theory, that an experiment will
produce a green precipitate. In fact, the resulting precipitate is the colour of ‘ripe
tomatoes’, which the chemists anyway call green. A rival team of chemists, on the
other hand, insists that it is red. Collin argues that, on the basis of his communitarian
interpretation of Wittgenstein, Bloor would claim that both communities are right ‘by
their own lights’ (72). But, really, Bloor would do no such thing. (I asked him.) He
 International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 123

would rather challenge the intelligibility of the claim that the first team is right ‘by
their own lights’. How should we make sense of this claim when all we have to go
by are our own lights? And, by our lights, they are wrong: they have not correctly fol-
lowed the rule for applying the term ‘green’. We agree with the second team because
they go by the same lights as we do. They are, in other words, part of our community.
After misrepresenting Bloor’s rule communitarianism, Collin goes on to depict Bloor
as treating rule-following as ‘a free-for-all’ and language-use as ‘semantic anarchism’
(75). Collin’s decoy Bloor also argues that ‘decision in science is unfettered by semantic
constraints; this, by default, leaves it open to social (and other) influences’ (74). The real
Bloor, in contrast, would not separate the semantic from the social. Meaning is norma-
tive, and semantic norms are social norms. Science is, in fact, fettered by semantic
constraints just because it is thoroughly social. The real point of disagreement, which
Collin should have focused on, is that the rules governing scientific practice do not,
as it were, carry their justification around with them independently of any social
context. Rather, they find their justification in the social contexts where we put them
to good use. Collin presumably supports the former position, endorsing as he does a
‘rationalist philosophy of science’ (65). Alas, rather than undertaking the demanding
task of defending this position, he elects instead to bash up on a misrepresentation of
its sociological alternative. As a consequence, no real progress is made.
I have dwelt upon Collin’s treatment of the Strong Programme because Collin writes
that the emergence of the Strong Programme is ‘the point of origin of my narrative’
(viii). According to him, the ‘pernicious interaction’ of the programme’s scientistic
naturalism, on the one hand, and its alleged determination to undermine science,
on the other, stimulated ‘an intense hybridization among its descendants within
STS [science and technology studies]’ (viii). Collin goes on to discuss the works of
some of these descendants, evaluating their success in escaping the intolerable
tension he imagines to exist at the heart of the Strong Programme.
First, Harry Collins. According to Collin, Collins’s account of experimental contro-
versies leads him to the same dilemma faced by Bloor (93). On the one hand, Collins
claims scientific credibility for his sociological explanation for the resolution of such
controversies. On the other hand, he undercuts that credibility by rejecting the
explanatory relevance of a mind-independent reality (105).
Here we meet a version of the old chestnut that relativism is self-refuting. But we
should all recognize by now that the argument only passes muster given a correspon-
dence theory of truth. Collins has no truck with such a theory, and neither do many
anti-realist philosophers of science. Collin’s criticism of Collins is only as credible as
the correspondence theory it presupposes but does not defend.
Next, Bruno Latour. Collin brings Latour’s actant-network theory under fire, arguing
that an actant cannot be simultaneously the product of the stability of a network and a
contributor to the network’s stability (141). By affirming this simultaneity, Latour falls
into a ‘vicious circle’ (119). But the circle is vicious only if one assumes that the causal
relation must run either from network to actant, or actant to network. But why assume
this? The successful team player is both cultivated by and contributes to the stability of
her team. Latour is simply describing a positive feedback loop.
124 Book Reviews
Another, somewhat ironic, criticism of Latour fares better. Collin writes: ‘It would
be a blatant case of ad hominem argument to dismiss Latour’s thought as simply
reflecting a desire to align himself with powerful current trends in politics and
business’ (144). In my books, there’s nothing wrong with a little ad hominem argu-
ment, especially when it sounds about right.
Next, Andy Pickering. Here, Collin runs the same ad hominem line he did against
Latour (165). This strikes me as less plausible. Pickering (2010) has recently published
a history of some pretty unsuccessful British cyberneticists, arguing that their
obscure, largely forgotten, and in some cases really quite weird research points to a
‘new ontology’ upon which we might base a less aggressive, and more humane,
vision of ‘another future’. This may not set the ruling elite shaking in their shoes,
but I hardly think it squarely aligns with their interests either.
Finally, Steve Fuller. Collin shows considerable appreciation for Fuller’s attempts to
reinvigorate a prescriptive philosophy of science, but he criticizes Fuller’s continuing
commitment to constructivism. According to Collin, this constructivist stance under-
mines the credibility among scientists of Fuller’s prescriptions for the improvement of
science (196). This may well be true, but I suspect Fuller’s credibility among scientists
has anyway been irreparably damaged by his unfortunate intervention on behalf of
creationists in the American evolution wars.
Collin ends his book with his own prescription for the sociology of science. He rec-
ommends that it return to the Mertonian task of ferreting out the social and political
biases distorting current scientific controversies (222). He suggests, in particular, that
this weakened, watered-down sociology of science should focus its considerable
analytical tools on ‘a scientific issue the resolution of which would have profound
consequences for our outlook upon mankind’s position in the universe’ (222). Here
Collin means the question of extraterrestrial intelligence, including the apparently
‘very hard evidence’ for UFOs and alien abductions.

References
Bloor, D. 2011. Relativism and the sociology of scientific knowledge. In A companion to relativism,
edited by S. D. Hales, 433 –455. Oxford: Blackwell.
Pickering, A. 2010. The cybernetic brain: Sketches of another future. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Reisch, G. A. 2005. How the cold war transformed the philosophy of science: To the icy slopes of logic.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richardson, A. 2007. ‘That sort of everyday image of logical empiricism’: Thomas Kuhn and the
decline of logical empiricist philosophy of science. In The Cambridge companion to logical
empiricism, edited by A. Richardson and T. Uebel, 346– 369. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

JEFF KOCHAN
Zukunftskolleg und Fachbereich Philosophie
Universität Konstanz
# 2012, Jeff Kochan
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