Pluralism and Rationality in the Social Sciences. Studies of Higher Education and Research.

This paper looks at science from a sociological perspective while still trying to retain the aim of improving rationality. The paper claims that it is rational to have a methodological division of labor in science, in particular in the social sciences, and concludes that mono-methodological Crusonian rationality should be replaced by multi-methodological social rationality. The paper distinguishes among four different kinds of competition (parallel and counter, public-oriented and actor-oriented), and among three different kinds of rationality (technological, normal scientific, and philosophical), and then relates competition structures and rationality structures to each other. Finally, it discusses the particular case of rationality in the social sciences. This discussion focuses on research within economics and sociology that is public-oriented parallel competition, and rationality within social sciences that is similar to technology and applied natural science. The paper advocates a three-tiered methodological approach: (1) a single scientist cannot be fully rational; (2) all scientists should not conform to the same main methodological rules; and (3) science as a whole is rational when there is an interaction between the different rationalities. (6 references) (JDD)