Rationality and relativism - Einzelansicht

The issue of the relativity of truth and facts has recently become widely discussed, with talks of 'alternative facts' and living in a 'post-truth' society. In this seminar we will discuss texts which deal with this issue in the context of science. The work of Thomas Kuhn on scientific revolutions in the 1960s led to debates about the question whether developments in science can be seen as rational. These debates motivated work in sociology of science, in which social rather than scientific factors are emphasized as causes for the spread of scientific ideas, and relativistic accounts of science according to which there are no fixed standards for truth and rationality in science, just different points of view. We will discuss texts that question rationality in science by authors such as Feyerabend, Bloor, Schaffer and Shapin, as well as criticisms of these texts and of relativistic accounts of science in general. The seminar will be in English.