{"product_id":"finalization-in-science-the-social-orientation-of-scientific-progress-9789400970823","title":"Finalization in Science: The Social Orientation of Scientific Progress","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Wolf Schäfer\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Springer\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Springer\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese essays on Finalization in Science - The Social Orientation of Scientific Progress comprise a remarkable, problematic and controversial book. The authors propose a thesis about the social direction of scientific research which was the occasion of a lively and often bitter debate in Germany from 1976 to 1982. Their provocative thesis, briefly, is this: that modern science converges, historically, to the development of a number of 'closed theories', i. e. stable and relatively completed sciences, no longer to be improved by small changes but only by major changes in an entire theoretical structure. Further: that at such a stage of 'mature theory', the formerly viable norm of intra-scientific autonomy may appropriately be replaced by the social direction' of further scientific research (within such a 'mature' field) for socially relevant or, we may bluntly say, 'task-oriented' purposes. This is nothing less than a theory for the planning and social directing of science, under certain specific conditions. Understandably, it raised the sharp objections that such an approach would subordinate scientific inquiry as a free and untrammeled search for truth to the dictates of social relevance and dominant interests, even possibly to dictation and control for particularistic social and political interests.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Springer","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45282712551575,"sku":"9789400970823","price":16893.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9789400970823.webp?v=1769302961","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/finalization-in-science-the-social-orientation-of-scientific-progress-9789400970823","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}