Does sociology explain, understand or unmask science?

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to criticize social constructivism’s intention made of explaining the content of scientific theories as a byproduct of social causes. Starting from the old-aged opposition - and widespread in the history of social sciences -between explain and understand, this paper holds the thesis that the most adequate way of studying sociologically the content of science is by adopting a methodology devoted to understand how meanings are attached to actions. Disregarding this, cognitive sociology of science has preferred to try to explain science’s content as a result of social construction. The application to science of a causal model of explanation has reached meager metascientific results. In spite of defending the adoption of an understanding type of methodology in the study of science, this article recognizes the difficulties faced by Verstehende Soziologieto justify its methodological procedures. This work intends to make clear that the research programme of cognitive sociology of science has not been able to attain significant results. It has failed in its attempt to explain socially the content of scientific theories. But this has not preventedit of having the ambition to unmask the views of science held by philosophers and scientists. We will try to clear up how the cognitive sociology of science has tried to unmask rationalist and empiricist metasciences making use of a kind of approach inspired in the treatment thinkers like Marx, Durkheim e Malinowsky have applied to the study of social action and the way it is conceived by social agents.