Images of Knowledge, Social Organization, and Attitudes to Research in an Indian Physics Department

Bibliographic Data

ID4516335
AuthorsKapil Raj (0000-0002-1243-2754, Centre Alexandre Koyré, corresponding author)
Year1988
Volume2
Issue2
Pages317-339
Publication date1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889700000624
OpenAlexW2154259459
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited40

The ArgumentSociologists of Third World science, who share the dominant assumption in the philosophy of science that the "culture" of specific substantive fields of scientific inquiry is invariant across the globe, have, after a period of blind optimism devoted to building a critical mass of scientists in the developing countries, relapsed into a bleaker mood and see the Third World as a peripheral region lacking in "creativity" in its research programs.Challenging the doctrine of the universality of scientific practice by means of an in situ study of an Indian physics laboratory, an attempt is made to bring to light a particular community's shared ideals of knowledge (provided by the specific historico-cultural Indian context) which animate the everyday practice of its field of study and fashion its choice of problems, style of professional communication, attitudes toward experiment, etc. These local ingredients should not be understood as deficiencies with respect to some arbitrary norm (mostly taken as the practice in the particular field of inquiry in the "developed" world) but as what differentiates research practices in different parts of the world

Creativity · Doctrine · Epistemology · Globe · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Psychology · Research, Science, and Academia · Science, Technology, and Education in Latin America · Social Psychology

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