Topics Science

Question I presume scientists (consciously or not) use some fundamental assumptions in their work. I can think of 'Our minds are capable of deriving rational theories' and 'There actually are consistent physical laws to be discovered'. I expect there are more than this. Is there a list someone has figured out? It probably applies to more non-scientists as well. Or if there isn't a list, why not? Thanks.

Accepted:
February 6, 2007

Comments

Certainly scientists make epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, and methodological assumptions that affect their work. Historians and philosophers of scientists have discussed this quite a bit, and so have sociologists of science.

Although determing the exact content of these assumptions is too complicated and too controversial an endeavor for there to be a comprehensive non-controversial list, many specific examples have been proposed and debated. Panelists who work in this area can provide their own favorite examples and references, but if you have not read much about what philosophjers have said about this I recommend Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer's engaging historical study Leviathan and the Air-Pump and Thomas Kuhn's classic contemporary study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

You are right that similar types of assumptions affect all of us in varied and sometimes profound ways. For an engaging study of this topic in a wider context than the practice of science, I find many texts by the French historian Michel Foucault extremely interesting.