SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS

ALPARSLAN AÇIKGENÇ

ABSTRACT

There are some sociologists who claim that science is a social institution, and as
such there is an obvious need to study it from this perspective.1 In this sense, they argue
that the sociology of science is concerned with the social structure of science in order to
define the nature of scientific ideas and describe their relations both to other kinds of
ideas, such as philosophical, theological and aesthetic, and to various institutional and
personality factors.2 This cannot be acceptable to us; for science is defined here primarily
as a body of organized knowledge; and therefore, it cannot be defined at the same
time as a social institution. There are certain social institutions which can contribute
to the emergence and development of sciences; but this cannot render science a social
institution. If science cannot be defined as a social institution, then obviously sociology
cannot deal with its nature and structure. The main reason for this is that as a body of
organized knowledge, science is primarily a cognitive activity and as such its real nature
can be dealt with only in the epistemology of science, which can be taken as a branch, or
simply a subject, in the philosophy of science.3