The ArgumentWritten as one book, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England has become two. One book, treating Puritanism and science, has since become “The Merton Thesis.” The other, treating shifts of interest among the sciences and problem choice within the sciences, has been less consequential. This paper proposes that neglect of one part of the monograph has skewed readers' understanding of the whole. Society and culture contributed to institutionalization of science and the directions it took, neither one (...) exclusively. Four aspects of the neglected chapters are examined: their theoretical underpinnings, the conceptions providing foundations for this part specifically and for the monograph as a whole; their comparative neglect, attributed partly to the absence of a cognitive constituency for their claims; the problem of problem choice in science in Merton's work; and the Merton monograph and later social constructionism:their differences and affinities. (shrink)

The ArgumentDespite more than fifty years of debate on the Merton thesis, there have been few attempts to substantiate Merton's argument through empirically based comparative studies. This study of the Jesuit scientific tradition is intended to serve as a test of some of Merton's central claims.Jesuit science is remarkable for its scope and longevity, and is distinguished by its markedly empirical and utilitarian orientation. In this paper I examine the ideological structure of the Society of Jesus (...) and find at its core an “apostolic spirituality” that explains the legitimation of these forms of science within the Society. The values of apostolic spirituality strongly encouraged an activist mentality among Jesuits, which in turn led to the formation of apostolates in education, at court, and in the overseas missions. The values associated with apostolic spirituality led to the initial acceptance of active-empirical sciences within the Society, which became established as traditions because they were useful in fulfilling the goals of the Society's apostolates.This study, by providing a qualified confirmation of Merton's central claims, suggests the importance of a supra-confessional sanctification of labor and learning in the growth of active-empirical sciences. (shrink)

This qualitative analysis examines the thinking of Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on the impact that they believe technology and the idea of progress has had on human freedom. The thesis is that for both Merton and Ellul, modern technology itself and an uncritical acceptance of the idea of technological progress potentially inhibits the contemplative life and serves to deprive humanity of the God-given gift of freedom. Examining Merton and Ellul through theological, sociological, and political lenses (...) allows a point-by-point comparison of a number of different ideas that directly relate to the impact that technology has had on the human condition. This comparison identifies commonalities of thought and traces some of the antecedents to their thought. Merton the Roman Catholic and Ellul the Protestant offer remarkably similar conclusions regarding the impact that technology has had on the human condition. As Christians, they provide a distinctly Christocentric view of freedom, and it is against this unique view that the impact of technology and the idea of progress is evaluated. Both men offer a "third way," which is an approach that allows one to transcend the grip that the technological society maintains over the individual. They are examples of men not only thinking about the impact that technology has had on human freedom as much as they are individuals firmly committed to living out the ideals that they spent their lives articulating. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 167-170 [Access article in PDF] Journey into Emptiness: Dogen, Merton, Jung, and the Quest for Transformation. By Robert Jingen Gunn. New York: Paulist Press, 2000. xiv + 334 pp. Written by a New York psychotherapist who also has Zen training, the thesis of this book is that the experience of emptiness is a necessary precondition to spiritual transformation. "Emptiness" is defined as "an (...) experience of being without, of not having, not having answers, not having property, not having love or power or hope" (1). "Transformation" is described as a path that leads to the realization of our rootedness in a transcendent dimension. Three paths of transformation are discussed through three case studies: Buddhism in the experience of Dogen; Christianity through the life of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton; and Depth Psychology as developed in the life experience of Carl Jung. In each case the major obstacle to be overcome is ego and ego attachments. The transformation process, argues Gunn, is often triggered by an initial experience of emptiness such as the early loss of one's mother, an experience of death, divorce, depression, illness, failure, identity confusion, or loss of community. The traditions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Depth Psychology view a person's pivotal experience of emptiness "not as something painful to be avoided, but a door, leading to a larger vision and experience of connection to all of life" (7). Response to the experience of emptiness can be by either engagement or avoidance. Refusing the path of transformation will add to one's burden of suffering whether understood as karma, sin, or neurosis. Yet this is often the contemporary choice. Afraid to move into the unknown, or to let go of ego control, we hold on to whatever is within our grasp—a house, a marriage, an idea, an identity—and avoid the challenge of realizing our true selves. Choosing to enter the Buddhist Way, to take up one's cross or to make the unconscious conscious, is to adopt transformation from an initial emptiness to a "way of life that consists in ever-expanding awareness, continual letting-go of attachments and increasing freedom and service to all of life, to being itself" (9).The author suggests that three stages in the experience of emptiness and self-transformation [End Page 167] are found in the case studies of Dogen, Merton, and Jung: (1) experienced emptiness in their own lives; (2) used that experience to embark on their own path of transformation; and (3) returned to offer their practical experience as a method for others to use. Although viewed differently by each, emptiness is primary for all, and the self that is let go of remains but is transformed. For Dogen, in emptiness we let go of everything, including self and emptiness itself. What remains is no-thing, an insubstantiality that is neither nothing nor something, but leads us back to the Self, which is everything. For Merton, letting go of everything leaves an empty self experienced as poverty, but a poverty that leads to fulfillment, which finds the true Self hidden with Christ in God—free for God, free for others, free for whatever God wills. For Jung, emptiness is the sacrifice of ego to the larger Self, which transcends individual consciousness.While the analyses of the emptiness/transformative experiences of Dogen and Merton are well done, the presentation of Jung lacks depth and completeness. The author's psychotherapist vocation seemed to artificially force the analysis—as, for example, in Gunn's attempt to show that in each case the major trigger of the emptiness experience was the early loss of the mother.I found the presentation of Dogen's Buddhist experience to be the most fully developed and convincing of the three case studies. Gunn does an excellent job of situating Dogen's experience within the context of Buddhism by presenting a well-researched and well-written summary of Buddha, Nagarjuna, and Bodhidharma; however, the contribution of the Theravada understanding is completely ignored. The presentation of Nagarjuna is especially well done, but the author... (shrink)

The ArgumentMany of the epistemological issues that occupied natural philosophers of the seventeenth century were expressed visually in title-page engravings. One of those issues concerned the relative status to be accorded to evidence of the senses, as compared to knowledge gained by faith or reason. In title-page illustrations, the various arguments were often waged by a series of light metaphors: the Light of Reason, the Light of Nature, and the Lights of Sense, Scripture, and Grace. When such illustrations are examined (...) with the authors' theological views in mind, it becomes apparent that in the first half of the seventeenth century, Catholic authors favored the Light of Reason as a source of truth, while Protestant authors favored the Light of Nature. Since by the end of the century it was widely accepted by scientists of all religious persuasions that certain knowledge must be grounded in sense evidence and the direct study of nature, one might argue that in this instance Protestantism was responsible for nurturing an important development of the Scientific Revolution. However, the skewed nature of the sample and the large number of counterexamples available mitigate against taking this offshoot of the Merton thesis too seriously. (shrink)

The ArgumentA brief review of the Merton thesis shows that its restriction to England is arbitrary. An example from the historiography of modern physics suggests the possible payoff of an ecumenical Merton thesis and the means to explore it. A summary of the careers of men who practiced science literally in the church – men who built meridian lines in Italian cathedrals – indicates the range of social support of astronomical studies by Catholic institutions in the (...) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe argument developed herein, a countertheme to the Merton thesis, is that the ideal of science pursued by Galileo and his contemporaries in Italy would be unaffected by their Catholic faith if it could achieve apodictic proof in the subject of its investigations, in which case it would attain truth – the very goal sought by that faith. Unfortunately such proof was hard to come by in early seventeenth-century mechanics. A case study is proposed to show Galileo's (...) difficulty demonstrating the tensile strength of columns in mathematical physics on the basis of improper suppositions, contrasting these with the suppositions of a contemporary, Giovanni de Guevara. The case study casts new light on the subject of Galileo's atomism and its relation to the Eucharist, refuting Redondi's claim that this was the real motive behind Galileo's trial in 1633. A further lesson relating to the Merton thesis can also be drawn, namely, that while challenges to science from religious orthodoxy may appear as temporary obstacles, in the long run they are an aid to science in its efforts to bring mankind closer to the truth. (shrink)

In spite of vigorous opposition by a number of historians it has now become a commonplace that the rapid development of the ‘new philosophy’ sprang from the ideology of Puritanism. What began its career as the ‘Merton thesis’ has now been refined, developed, and so often repeated that it seems to be almost unassailable. However, the two foremost historians in the entrenchment of this new orthodoxy are willing, in principle, to concede that ‘in reality things were very mixed (...) up’, and that non-Puritan natural philosophers at the time were operating ‘in a precisely similar manner’ to their Puritan contemporaries. Indeed, it would be impossible not to concede this in the face of the many critiques launched against the Merton thesis. (shrink)

This book is an easy to read, yet comprehensive introduction to practical issues in research ethics and scientific integrity. It addresses questions about what constitutes appropriate academic and scientific behaviors from the point of view of what Robert Merton called the “ethos of science.” In other words, without getting into tricky questions about the nature of the good or right (as philosophers often do), Koepsell’s concise book provides an approach to behaving according to the norms of science and academia (...) without delving into the morass of philosophical ethics. The central thesis is that: since we know certain behaviors are necessary for science and its institutions to work properly (rather than pathologically), we can extend those principles to guide good behaviors as scientists and academics. The Spanish version of this book was commissioned by the Mexican National Science Foundation (CONACyT) and is being distributed to and used by Mexican scientists in a unique, national plan to improve scientific integrity throughout all of Mexico. Available now in English, the examples and strategies employed can be used throughout the English speaking research world for discussing issues in research ethics, training for scientists and researchers across disciplines, and those who are generally interested in ethics in academia. (shrink)

Most social scientists and philosophers claim that sociology and philosophy are disjoint fields of inquiry. Some have wondered how to trace the precise boundary between them. Mario Bunge argues that the two fields are so entangled with one another that no demarcation is possible or, indeed, desirable. In fact, sociological research has demonstrably philosophical pre-suppositions. In turn, some findings of sociology are bound to correct or enrich the philosophical theories that deal with the world, our knowledge of it, or the (...) ways of acting upon it. While Bunge's thesis would hardly have shocked Mill, Marx, Durkheim, or Weber, it is alien to the current sociological mainstream and dominant philosophical schools. Bunge demonstrates that philosophical problematics arise in social science research. A fertile philosophy of social science unearths critical presuppositions, analyzes key concepts, refines effective research strategies, crafts coherent and realistic syntheses, and identifies important new problems. Bunge examines Marx's and Durkheim's thesis that social facts are as objective as physical facts; the so-called Thomas theorem that refutes the behaviorist thesis that social agents react to social stimuli rather than to the way we perceive them; and Merton's thesis on the ethos of basic science which shows that science and morality are intertwined. He considers selected philosophical problems raised by contemporary social studies and argues forcefully against tolerance of shabby work in academic social science and philosophy alike. (shrink)

Certain predictions are such that their accuracy can be affected by their dissemination, by their being believed and acted upon. Examples of such reflexive predictions are presented. Various approaches to the precise delineation of this category of predictions are explored, and a definition is proposed and defended. Next it is asked whether the possible reflexivity of predictions creates a serious methodological problem for the social sciences. A distinction between causal and logical reflexivity helps support a negative answer. Finally, we consider (...) the thesis that "this characteristic of predictions is peculiar to human affairs" (Merton), and an attempted rebuttal (Grunbaum). It is argued that Grunbaum's rebuttal is ineffective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ROBERT ORFORD'S ATTACK ON GILES OF ROME I N TWO PREVIOUS ARTICLES, I tried to demonstrate how Robert Orford drew upon the thought of Giles of Rome in order to formulate his own explanation of hylomorphism and the so-called real distinction between essence and existence.1 Orford, it will be remembered, was one of the earliest disciples of his colleague St. Thomas Aquinas, and-more important- is the first 'llhomist we (...) know of who turned to Giles in order to gain an understanding of these basic philosophic problems, and who wove Giles's ideas into his own elaboration of what he took to be St. Thomas's position regarding them. In view of this recognition of Giles as an appropriate guide to a Thomist grasp of these issues, it is surprising to find among Orford's works the Reprobationes dfotorUJn a fratre Egidio in primum Sententiarum.2 The Reprobationes is a strange document. In it, as I shall show later, Orford seeks every opportunity to find fault with Giles. Indeed, his criticisms, hardly ever of any substance, are at times so "picky" they cause the reader to wonder as to his real purpose in writing them down in the first place. In this article, I shall review the historical context of the Reprobationes and try to show what it was about Giles of Rome that so irritated the Dominican Orford. The early catalogues contain no more than two entries for 1 See F. Kelley, "The Egidean influence in Robert Orford's doctrine on Form", Thomist, 47, 1, January, 1983, pp. 77-99, and "Two early English Thomists: Thomas Sutton and Robert Orford vs. Henry of Ghent", Thomist, 45, 3, July, 1981, pp. 345-387. 2 This work is extant in one manuscript, viz. MS. Merton 276, fol. 20ra50ra. It has been edited by A. Vella: Robert d'Orford Reprobationes dictorum a fratre Egidio in primum Sententiarum, Paris, 1968. 70 ROBERT ORFORD'S ATTACK ON GILES OF ROME 71 Orford.3 However, from references he made in his extant writings, viz., Sciendum, Contra dicta Henrici and Reprobationes, we know the titles at least of some of his other writings. As one might have expected, Orford wrote commentaries on the books of the Sentences. In addition to the references to these commentaries he mentions also a De unitate formae, Super 2 de sommo et vigilia, Super 6 de M etaphysica and De generatione. We know of Orford's part in certain disputed questions and of his sermon in rn93. Finally, we have offered our reasons elsewhere for attributing to him the opuscule entitled De natura materiae et dimensionibus interminatis.4 From the mere fact that Orford saw the necessity of writing against Giles of Rome in defense of St. Thomas Aquinas, one might have thought that in Giles one had found an antagonist of the Angelic Doctor. For a long time Giles was taken to have been not an adversary but rather a stout defender of his teacher, St. Thomas.5 The picture of Giles of Rome as the loyal Thomist, the legend as it has more recently been labelled, derived in no small measure from the erroneous ascription to him of the work which is in fact Richard Knapwell's, viz. Correctivum corruptorii 'Quare '.6 Once this mistaken ascription had been corrected and further study was done, mainly by E. Hocedez, Giles no longer appeared as having been the staunch and loyal Thomist of the legend. On the contrary, Hocedez says of him: Gilles decidement n'est pas le thomiste, clans le sens profond du mot, qui s'est donne Thomas pour Maitre et guide de sa pensee: a For a full account of what the catalogues have under Orford's name, see A. Vella, "Robert of Orford and his place in the scholastic controversies at Oxford in the late xiiith century" (Oxford Univ. B.Litt. thesis 1946), MS. B.Litt., c. 30, vol. 1, Bodleian Library, pp. 12-27. 4 See F. Kelley," The Egidean influence", pp. 90-96. 5 See F. Lajard, "Gilles de Rome", Histoire litteraire de la France, 30 (1888), pp. 421-566. 6 "Nous croyons que ce qui a le plus contribue a faire... (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to discuss the topicality of Merton’s thesis with a twofold meaning: as an idea which has its own place in the sociology of science and as an idea which is currently in its area of research. Merton asserts that the development of science in 17th century England was aided by the Puritan ethic. This does not means that science was caused by Puritanism, but only that Puritanism provided major support for the (...) scientific activity. Because secularization and integration were two complementary processes, the relationship between science and religion was not simple. I connect Merton’s thesis with Weber’s thesisabout Protestantism and capitalism and try to see it in the light of the cultural climate of its time. Finally, I argue that Merton offers a unified analysis of scienceas a social institution. (shrink)

This paper argues that history of economics has a fruitful, underappreciated role to play in the development of economics, especially when understood as a policy science. This goes against the grain of the last half century during which economics, which has undergone a formal revolution, has distanced itself from its `literary' past and practices precisely with the aim to be a more successful policy science. The paper motivates the thesis by identifying and distinguishing four kinds of reflexivity in economics. (...) The main thesis of this paper is that because these forms of reflexivity are not eliminable, the history of economics must play a constitutive role in economics. An assumption that I clarify in this paper is that the history of economics ought to be part of the subject matter studied by economics when they are interested in policy science. Even if one does not accept the conclusion, the fourfold classification of reflexivity might hold independent interest. The paper is divided in two parts. First, by reflecting on the writings of George Stigler, Paul Samuelson, George and Milton Friedman, I offer a stylized historical introduction to and conceptualization of the themes of this paper. In particular, I identify various historically influential arguments and strategies that reduced the role of history of economics within the economics discipline. In it I also canvass six arguments that try to capture the cost to economics for sidelining the history of economics from within the discipline. A sub-text of the introduction is that for contingent reasons, post World War II economics evolved into a policy science. Second, by drawing on the work of Kenneth Boulding, in particular, George Soros, Thomas Merton, Gordon Tullock, I distinguish between four species of reflexivity. These are used to then strengthen the argument for the constitutive role of the history of economics within the economics profession. In particular, I argue that so-called Kuhn-losses are especially pernicious when faced with policy choices under so-called Knightian uncertainty. (shrink)

The ArgumentScience consists in progress by innovation. Scientists, however, are committed to all kinds of traditions that persist or recur in society regardless of intellectual and institutional changes. Merton's thesis about the origins of the scientific revolution in seventeenth-century England offers a sociohistorical confirmation of this revisionist view: the emergence of a highly rational scientific method out of the religious-ethical sentiments of the English Puritans implies that scientific knowledge does indeed grow out of – and not really against (...) – customary modes of thought.In tracing the intellectual origins of this view back to the religious controversy between Protestants and Catholics, the essay demonstrates that the essential conflict between them with regard to natural science stemmed from their antagonistic conceptions of tradition and its function in the production of genuineknowledge– of religious as well as of natural affairs. Whereas the Protestants believed only in those truths that are immediately revealed by God to each man through his reason, the Catholics adhered to truths that are related to men or “made” by them through culture and history. (shrink)

It is perhaps fitting that some of Brand Blanshard’s last writings were on F.H. Bradley for they brought his career, and to some extent his philosophy, full circle. When Blanshard died on November 18, 1987, the last surviving person to have talked philosophy with Bradley, and one of only a handful to have conversed face-to-face with him at all, departed this world. Blanshard met Bradley twice while he was completing a B.S. degree at Merton College, Oxford. Until that time, (...) Blanshard really had nothing to do with Bradley at Oxford, aside from struggling, like so many other students, with his Appearance and Reality and the first edition of the Principles of Logic. His tutor was Harold Joachim and his B.S. thesis, entitled “Some Metaphysical Implications of Judgment,” was a critical examination of the theories of judgment of Bosanquet, Russell, and the pragmatists. The examiners were Sir William Ross and H.W.B. Joseph. F.C.S. Schiller, the Oxford exponent of pragmatism who was almost alone in his irreverence for Bradley and issued the famous comic edition of Mind depicting in its frontpiece a portrait of the Absolute as a large blank circle of pale pink, also read the thesis and inserted some complimentary comments at the end. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Other Side of Nothingness: Toward a Theology of Radical OpennessPaul O. IngramThe Other Side of Nothingness: Toward a Theology of Radical Openness. By Beverly J. Lanzetta. Albany: State University of New York, 2001. 182 pp.The central thesis of The Other Side of Nothingness is that apophatic mystical experience offers Christians a theology of humility sensitive to religious pluralism, which in turn is a means of overcoming (...) the "pains of spiritual oppression" caused by religious intolerance and doctrinal imperialism. The book's argument is that "mystical consciousness" overturns the dogmatic truth claims of "conventional theology" by preparing the self for the experience of radical openness to "divinity," however "divinity" is theologically named in the "conventional theology" of humanity's religious traditions. The book's author, Beverly J.Lanzetta, draws on a variety of Christian mystical texts to support her claims: Meister Eckhart, Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Teresa of Avila, Bonaventure, and the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing. She also makes comparative references to Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi traditions, along with contemporary writers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Howard Thurman, and Dorothy Day to illustrate her claim that apophatic mystical experience—the experience of the utter [End Page 306] annihilation of the self—draws the mystic to a place beyond a tradition's historical and normative self-understanding to new dimensions of the Sacred and, sometimes, to new "revelatory paradigms." The revelatory paradigm Lanzetta believes she has discovered in the evidence she cites is that "the divine nature itself is pluralistic, non-absolute, and is continually the source of new religious traditions," by which she means something similar to what John Cobb calls "creative transformation." For her, this is the antidote to religious imperialism and the exclusivism of conventional theology, meaning "non-mystical theology," which she argues is the source of religions fanaticism in all religions traditions, particularly in Christianity.There is much to admire about Lanzetta's take on mysticism and its importance for undercutting theological absolutism of the sort one encounters in the Christian Right or in certain radical movements within contemporary Islam. Her analyses of the mystical texts she cites to support her arguments are carefully crafted and accurately express the theologies of the Christian mystics who are the foci of her own theological reflection. Her writing style is elegant and clearly expresses the passion with which she embraces her views. I especially liked her focus on kenotic Christology in her description of the "Apophatic Christ" who "bears the generosity of speech and teaches an ethic of radical openness," which Lanzetta claims is also an openness to truths found outside Christian tradition. "All are called not to his name, his ministry, or even to his person, but are called to sustain the tension between the saying and the unsaying, and between the living and the dying, in which God's nonviolent heart yearns for unconcealment" (p. 90). Indeed, this is the heart of Christian mystical experience of Christ, particularly attested to in the writings of Maguerite Porete and Hildegard von Bingen. Yet kenotic Christologies are also found in nonmystical theology, which Lanzetta tends to lump together pejoratively under her category "conventional theology." Consequently, as much as I admire this book and agree with its essential conclusions—but for different reasons—my trouble with this work originates in Lanzetta's assertion of a hard dualism between mystical theology and "ordinary theology," a dualism that undermines her arguments and conclusions. My concern is threefold.First, mystical experience is primarily a matter of consciousness in the sense that something previously unknown and unexperienced is suddenly "there." This unanticipated presence is as real to the mystic's perspective as everyday experiences are, which is why mystics so often speak of being empowered to "see" or "touch" or "taste" what has been up to now imperceptible. If the experience is apophatic in structure—a usually brief moment of awareness in which all subject-object duality is overcome so that the mystic isn't aware of a self separated from what the self experiences or even that there is an "experience happening"—the mystic is neither thinking, feeling, or interpreting. That is... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 135-157 [Access article in PDF] "That We May Know Each Other": The Pluralist Hypothesis as a Research Program Paul O. Ingram Pacific Lutheran University When an African American Muslim named Siraj Wahaj served as the first Muslim "Chaplain of the Day" in the Unites States House of Representatives on 25 June 1991 he offered the following prayer, the first Muslim prayer in the in the (...) history of the House of Representatives: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful. Praise belongs to thee alone; O God, Lord and Creator of all the worlds. Praise belongs to Thee Who shaped us as and colored us in the wombs of our mothers; colored us black and white, brown, red, and yellow. Praise belongs to Thee who created us from males and females and made us into nations and tribes that we may know each other.1Siraj Wahaj's prayer is a direct reference to one of the most cited verses of the Qur'an: "Do you not know, O people, that I have made you into tribes and nations that you may know each other." Of course, "knowing each other" is an important goal in the practice of interreligious dialogue, but Muslims often move on to cite further Qur'anic advice about religious pluralism: "If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people," the verse reads, "But His plan is to test you in what He hath given you; so strive as in a race in all virtues."2 According to Siraj Wahaj and many like-minded American Muslims, Islam and pluralism go hand in hand and respect for the dignity for each person, no matter what religious or secular label he or she wears, rests on Islamic foundations. Of course, this interpretation of the Qur'an is rejected by radical communities within the House of Islam as well as by fundamentalist communities within Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. Nor are the foundations of pluralism only found in the Qur'an; Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, and aboriginal traditions support religious pluralism as well.This essay's thesis, what John Hick first posited as the "pluralist hypothesis," offers us the most coherent theoretical framework—minus Hick's Kantian epistemology—from which to interpret contemporary postmodern experiences of religious [End Page 135] diversity. Furthermore, I shall argue that the pluralist hypothesis constitutes a coherent history-of-religions research program from which to investigate and interpret the facts of religious diversity.3 In order to demonstrate the adequacy of my thesis and argument, I shall appropriate the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos's account of the methodology and structure of scientific research programs, guided by Nancy Murphy's application of Lakatos's work in the construction of theological research programs. But first, some preliminary clarifications about what I mean by "religious pluralism" and "religious diversity."4 The Structure of the Experience of Religious Pluralism In a recent book on the lives of four Catholic writers—Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy—Paul Elie provides one of the most accurate descriptions of the structure of postmodern experience of religious diversity in English print: We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, and are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto ourselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty, but the problem of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it should be.5Assuming that Elie's description is an accurate one, certain implications follow that will serve as working assumptions of this essay."Pluralism" is not just another name for "diversity." Diversity names the fact of the existence of differing... (shrink)

On this occasion, I shall try to respond to the suggestions that I report what it was like to be a graduate student at Harvard in the early 1930s engaged in writing a dissertation which took the shape in print of the monograph, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. This, quite some time before the sociology of science had emerged with a cognitive and social identity. I shall not attempt an account – let alone an explanatory account – of (...) the micro-environment at Harvard back then that provided local context for that study. Indeed, I suspect that the Gerald Holton, Everett Mendelsohn and Arnold Thackray reconstructions come closer to the intellectual and social reality of that time and place than anything I might reconstruct. (shrink)

Forty-three years ago Max Weber observed that “the belief in the value of scientific truth is not derived from nature but is a product of definite cultures.” We may now add: and this belief is readily transmuted into doubt or disbelief. The persistent development of science occurs only in societies of a certain order, subject to a peculiar complex of tacit presuppositions and institutional constraints. What is for us a normal phenomenon which demands no explanation and secures many ‘self-evident’ cultural (...) values, has been in other times and still is in many places abnormal and infrequent. The continuity of science requires the active participation of interested and capable persons in scientific pursuits. This support of science is assured only by appropriate cultural conditions. It is, then, important to examine those controls which motivate scientific careers, which select and give prestige to certain scientific disciplines and reject or blur others. It will become evident that changes in institutional structure may curtail, modify or possibly prevent the pursuit of science. (shrink)

The spiritual and psychological insights of these essays were nurtured in a monastic milieu, but their issues are universally human. Merton lays a foundation for personal growth and transformation through fidelity to "our own truth and inner being." His main focus is our desire and need to attain "a fully human and personal identity." This classic is a newly restored and corrected edition and the inaugural volume of _Gethsemani Studies_, a series of books that explores, through the twin perspectives (...) of psychology and religion, the dynamics and depths of being fully human. (shrink)

An axiomatization of the theory is presented based on an explication of the 1957 text. Twenty-five theorems are deduced from the seven postulates. An abstract test space for the theory is formulated and the operations for its practical testing discussed. Traditional experimentation with the theory seems generally concerned with few of its propositions and incapable of testing it.

Lorsque certaines conditions sont réunies, une théorie sociale peut naître à partir d’un résultat obtenu lors d’un travail de recherche. Cette idée fut exposée bien trop rapidement dans un précédent article dans les termes qui suivent : « une recherche empirique fructueuse ne se contente pas de vérifier des hypothèses issues d’une théorie, elle est également à l’origine de nouvelles hypothèses. On peut nommer cette composante du travail de recherche la “sérendipité”, c’est-à-dire la...