The term scientist has only been around for a few centuries. Before that time, all ìscientists,î from Aristotle to Galileo, were known during their times as natural philosophers. The change in titles ocurred in 1833 when William Whewell introduced the term, scientist, in its modern sense; the change seems to indicate that intellectuals no longer regarded science or natural philosophy as merely a branch of traditional philosophy, but, rather, as an individual discipline. Joe Rouse, a philosopher of science and chair of Wesleyan Universityís Science in Society Program, contends that science and philosophy are similar in that while philosophy is a different kind of practice than the sciences, neither are well understood by analyzing their structures of justification of what has been proposed. Rather, the sciences and philosophy should be regarded as practices, not bodies of knowledge.
This notion of science as a practice is one of the main themes of Rouseís 1987 book, Knowledge and Power : Toward a Political Philosophy of Science, published by Cornell University Press. One of the issues he explores in the book, related to the notion of science as a practice, is the changing focus of science.
ìWe are constantly reorganizing and redirecting the focus of science, and what matters now will change in the future,î Rouse said. ìOftentimes what we regard as truth today becomes completely inaccurate or obsolete in the future. However, those inaccuracies were important to the development of a new current focus. Therefore, you can see how science builds off its past in a kind of trial and error fashion that mirrors many practices. ëTrial and errorí suggests an individual methodology, indeed one which does not characterize science by and large; however this thinking expresses the idea that science is a practice that continually transforms itself.î
This process is essentially what goes on in laboratory work, for example, where chemicals are introduced to each other and changes are observed. Because of this connection, Rouse regards the lab as perhaps the most important part of science.
ìA lot of students regard lab work as simply the practical application of principles learned from textbook reading,î he said. ìHowever, the organization of science is very important in that it is based largely on research rather than knowledgeówhat our knowledge claims actually say, and why they matter, cannot be adequately grasped apart from understanding the practice, and the skills and materials through which it is implemented. And for that reason, I like to study instrumentation and its role in science. Much of science is conceptualóa crucial part of the work of science is in disclosing and stabilizing new phenomena, which requires both new techniques/materials/systems, and new concepts. The importance of new (or more refined and precise) concepts is not simply the truth claims one can make with them, but the areas of possible exploration they make possible, and the ways they transform what would be a significant question, and a possible answer to it. For this reason the materials of science are extremely important. Working with the materials should be the focus of scientific concepts. One way of illustrating this is oftentimes physics students will read a chapter in a textbook and understand the chapter intellectually. However, once they get to the problems they canít do them. The common reaction is: ëwhat an awful textbook this is.í The problem is, though, that oneís ability to understand and use the words of science is not self-sufficient. One does not understand what a Newtonian force is simply be learning F=ma, but also by learning to pick out the relevant forces in particular problem situations. It is in the labs and the problem sets that the students really learn the concepts.î
Rouse does not discount the fact that knowledge and truth have a role in science. However, he regards it as at the wrong level of analysis.
-Joseph Rouse
ìSome of the most truthful things we can say involve the least science,î Rouse said. ìFor example, I feel very comfortable in saying there have been some black dogs. Lot of truth there, not much science. The point is not that scientific claims arenít also true, it is that the more philosophically interesting question is which truth claims are ëscientificí claims (and/or important or interesting claims) and why. What makes a question, a claim, an expermental system, a research project, etc. So, how do we decide what to explore and what not to if truth can be found without doing much science? Does that relate to some sort of social influences? ëSocial influencesí suggest that society is ëoutsideí of science and influences it. I think that scientific practices are social and cultural all the way down, and hence we have to understand how they are themselves ësocial influences.íî
Although Rouse is interested in these social influences on science, he does not actively do research in the history of science. His work does draw extensively upon that of historians, and is sometimes critically engaged with them, but he is not an historian.
Rouseís 1996 book, Engaging Science : how to Understand its Practices Philosophically, which was also published by Cornell University Press, places important emphasis on the language of science and the differing roles the varying disciplines play in developing that language.
ìScience, at its most pragmatic level, is in the business of developing concepts,î said Rouuse. ìFor example, what do we mean by the term ëgeneí (i.e., what is the concept that that term expresses?) Well, itís just a word until science attaches a concept to it and determines how how the concept is actually employed in relation to experimental systems and theoretical networks that gives it meaning. However, itís a terrible assumption, I think, to assume that all science is one sort of thing. The scientific fields are related in that they all involve materials; however, physics is very different than geology, and biology is very different than chemistry and so on. To look at them all as contributing to a singular vocabulary would be an oversimplification. The relations among sciences are involved in a wide range of borrowings, translations, constraints, etc. rather than any simple hierarchical relations of inclusion or explanation.î
Rouse is aware that his field, the philosophy of science, is sometimes critically scrutinized by natural scientists and recognizes that some of that scrutiny is warranted. However, he still regards his work and the work of other philosophers as essential for the contextualization of science.
ìScientists are correct that a lot of philosophy has spun off of science to pursue things which are hardly related to the science, and ultimately disregard the import of the science to an extent,î Rouse said. ìHowever, people in science are finding more often than ever in different experiments that their substances and activities are becoming increasingly specialized and disconnected from other experiments. One of the things philosophers can contribute to science is to find the connections and their import to society.î
Rouse is currently working on a third book, which he hopes to complete this summer. The book will further develop and explore these themes relating to the practice of science and the notion that thinking about science as practices holds significance for philosophical work on mind, language and knowledge.