science as pramana sastra

8/8/2019 Science as Pramana Sastra

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Science as Pramana Sastra

Reflections on science and the order of knowledge

Science creates an order of things in the universe. My attempt in this paper, however, is

to explore the order of knowledge that science creates in society. It is claimed here that

what lies at the heart of science, and gives it a unity, is a normative framework ofknowledge. This framework does not merely seek to act as a guide to research but

determines our relationship to various sciences as well as to all other knowledge in

society thereby creating an order of knowledge.

By science, I simply mean 'modern science' - knowledge contained therein, various

sciences, scientists and their endeavors, the institutions, practices, and a specificnormative framework of knowledge - the last I believe is often ignored.

A normative framework of knowledge is a philosophy of right knowledge. It tells us

what is the right kind of knowledge that we should seek, what are the sources or means ofsuch knowledge, what is the nature of error, and so on. We need these guiding

frameworks of knowledge in the conduct of our lives. We cannot live by our knowledge

alone. We depend on a variety of knowledge that exist in society. How do we relate tothese knowledge in society? We cannot evaluate each and every knowledge claim that we

live by or use. We trust some tradition of knowledge more and some other less. Myproposal is that the relation between specific knowledge claims and ourselves is mediatedby the normative frameworks of knowledge. We can also call these frameworks meta-

conceptions of knowledge.

I want to query how science relates to me who is not a practitioner or believer. What kind

of authority it demands from me for itself? What kind of authority it constitutes for itself?

To the question whether I know enough about Science to interrogate its authority, I will

say that I have encountered its authority and my right to interrogate its authority is notconditional upon my mastery over science. I want to be free to constitute a relationship

between science and myself in a manner that is just to me as an epistemic being and to

the authority in question as an epistemic enterprise. I am not contesting every knowledgeclaim made under the banner of science. And I believe there is a great wealth of

knowledge in the sciences. But I do assert the right to contest any claim of science based

on my own knowledge or on knowledge deriving from some other tradition.

It seems paradoxical to talk of the authority of science, since science is supposed to

embody knowledge produced without any regard to authority. If science is a result of free

enquiry, how can it demand authority for itself from others? The authority of science that


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I speak of is, I believe, given in our experience. With a qualification, however, that the

authority is experienced only when one begins to question it. The authority of science is

different from that of a doctrine, philosophy, or ideology. It is not just a given body ofknowledge to which we are being asked to commit ourselves. Science claims to have the

right recipe for generating new knowledge. If there are questions science cannot answer

today, it is claimed they will certainly be answered tomorrow. Science claims authorityover present knowledge and any possible knowledge in future.

Normative Frameworks of Knowledge

Normative frameworks of knowledge begin from some new knowledge a great

discovery or invention, which proves itself and comes to be regarded as authoritative. It isknowledge about whose validity there is little doubt, at least among some people. When a

new discovery is made, accounts of this discovery are also given or reconstructed. It is

from such accounts associated with an important discovery or invention that a meta-

conception of knowledge is born. This account of discovery becomes a guidingframework in search of further knowledge. These accounts are epistemic. In fact, that is

precisely what they are - epistemic accounts.

When we learn something new, we do not just learn this new knowledge, but imbibe a

meta-conception of knowledge. When children study and learn everyday science,

mathematics, language etc., they also must be imbibing a meta-conception of knowledge,an idea of science. Same is true when we go to learn a trade or an art or a science. When

we learn Sanskrit in a German university and when we learn Sanskrit in a traditional

Indian setting, the meta-conceptions of knowledge will be different from each other.When we have a conflict about a knowledge claim, and if the conflict is not resolved

beyond a point, we move to a discussion about the meta-conceptions of knowledge.

When a knowledge claim seems incomprehensible to us, then too we look for the meta-conception of knowledge behind that particular claim in order to understand the claim

better.

Any organized body of knowledge, or any knowledge tradition (vidya), has an epistemic

account of its knowledge. Epistemic accounts can be contested, but it is not incumbent

upon the practitioners of knowledge to defend their meta-conception of their own

knowledge from any and every questioning. If a craftsman keeps turning out excellentproducts, we do not question his knowledge. If we are dissatisfied with the product, we

might question the skill of that particular craftsman. If the whole range of products is

flawed, then we might question the very knowledge and the epistemic account of thatknowledge. So there are numerous meta-conceptions of knowledge in society, with their

own fields of application.

But some epistemic accounts have a broader range of application. Consider the case of

the Vedas. We are told that there are four Vedas. The first one the Rg Veda, is

considered the most important. We are told that Vedas are 'apauresheya', recorded by

rishis, and that all utterances contained there are true. That the highest forms of


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knowledge are contained in those utterances. This is an epistemic account, or a normative

framework of knowledge, which has a large field of application. In fact, in this

framework, nothing should contradict these utterances. Authority of Vedas that thisepistemic account seeks to construct is not only for Vedic pandits or priests, but for the

whole society. As such, I believe that the whole society has the right to contest it, and as

we know, it was contested.

One arena of contest is philosophy. Each of the darsanas in Indian philosophical tradition

articulates a theory of pramanas where sources of right knowledge are given and thenumber and nature of these pramanas are discussed. Many of them accommodate the

authority of Vedas in their conceptions, some privilege it above all other, and some reject

it. Epistemic accounts are discussed at the most general level in these discussions.

I can now explain the title of this presentation. Why pramana sastra? Indian philosophical

tradition poses the question of knowledge, or right knowledge, in terms of the conceptual

apparatus associated with the root verb `ma (to know) in Sanskrit - prameya, prama,

pramana (the knower, the known, knowledge, and the means of knowledge) etc. Thenotion of pramana, among all these, is the most important in the meta-theoretical

enterprise of pramana sastra. Pramana can be loosely translated as the means of rightknowledge. Pratyaksa and anumana (direct knowledge and inferred knowledge) are two

pramanas common to most schools of thought. Upamana and sabda (comparison and

authoritative word) are two other pramanas important in Indian darsanas.

In my interpretation, pramana sastra is a normative framework of knowledge that tells us

the means of right knowledge, the nature of error, and so on. It is a philosophy of right

knowledge. In addition, it treats knowledge in a causal framework. Knowledge can becaused and thus being caused does not rob knowledge of its cognitive fruits. The

approach to knowledge which pramanshastra represents itself may be challenged as was

done by Nagarjuna, but the formulation is universal. This is not to deny that it is aspecifically Indian formulation.

Indian society was confronted with science as an authoritative mode of knowledgecoming from powerful European colonisers. India had its own authoritative bodies of

knowledge. A crisis must have been experienced. One response was to accept the self-

understanding of science as the only form of valid knowledge. Another response, as we

can imagine, must have been an indifference to the claims of science, or even defiance.

There emerged a particularly influential resolution to this problem, perhaps along with

the emergence of nationalism. It went something like this - science is the validknowledge in the material realm and Vedas, Upanishads and shastras are valid

knowledge in the spiritual realm. This response takes science at its own word as regards

the knowledge of this world, but declares the traditional knowledge to be valid for theother world, or spiritual realm. Alternatively, or rather equivalently, science was seen as

the path of inquiry into external nature, and our tradition as providing the path of inquiry

into internal nature, or atman. In this schema we have two classes of knowledge, science

and tradition, each with a distinct object of its own. It is another example of a normative


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framework. You can find this in Vivekananda [1] and perhaps in Radhakrishnan. Many

Indian scientists also subscribe to it. Such a normative organization of knowledge

devalues pratyaksa (direct knowledge) as a pramana and all material knowledgetraditions also are pushed out of the picture.

Science as Pramana Sastra

But we want to examine science as a pramana sastra, as a philosophy of right knowledge.Will science have a problem with this? Perhaps not if it is the only pramana sastra in

town. Will philosophy of science have a problem with this? For western philosophy,

normative frameworks of knowledge may be unacceptable.

Science that the philosophers of science speak of is the same as the science I speak of,

i.e., modern science. It is just that if we take away sciences from science, there is nothing

left behind, as far as the philosophers of science are concerned. For me, there is still

something left, namely the normative framework of knowledge. This is the reason I referto it as "Science as distinct from sciences". Science studies fail to make any distinction

between science and the sciences. Philosophers of science look for an objectivedescription of science, and they find there are only sciences to describe. They study

sciences and from this data try to infer back the nature of science, and reach different

conclusions. It is not even clear whether the object called science in philosophy of

science, sociology of science and history of science is the same. It is the normativestructure of knowledge that brings together all the various elements the institution, the

sciences, the practices together.

The common conception of science entertained by scientists and laypeople alike, or a

family of such conceptions, is rejected by science studies as 'naive', because science in

each instance does not correspond to this naive conception. This nave conception dealswith such discrepancies in a different manner. If an instance is pointed out where this

method was not employed, you will be told that the instance in question is not really an

instance of science. It is instructive to note that while there is no consensus onepistemology of science, there is a fairly dominant self-understanding of science

articulated as a normative framework.

Authority of science

We are told that scientific explanation of a phenomenon is the most likely to be true.Scientific explanations command immense authority. It does not mean that one can say

anything in the name of science and people will accept it. An explanation has to explain

first. So if people accept an explanation, it is because it explains. Several explanationsmay be possible. These explanations call upon some body of knowledge or the other. We

accept those explanations which rely on a body of knowledge that we trust.

We trust it either because we have tested it or know it be tested in a variety of situations,


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or because we trust in the meta-conception of knowledge associated with that body of

knowledge. We share in that meta-conception of knowledge. We agree with its evaluation

of sources, methods, and so on.

Is there such an agreement or sharing when we put our trust in science? In case of

scientists, and in case of non-scientists? It seems as if there is no such agreement in thelatter case. But actually there is. We trust knowledge produced by science because we are

told that it is knowledge produced by disinterested open-ended enquiry, starting with

observations which everyone is capable of, the process of investigation is public, claimsare demonstrable, and tested, and that no previous knowledge is accorded any authority.

It is because we believe that knowledge produced in this way will be reliable, at least in a

certain sphere, that we put our trust in science. We give our assent to the epistemic

account that science seems to give of itself and therefore we trust the knowledgeproduced by science. Or, we trust it because of the technological marvels which science

has produced. Just the way we relate to the work of a craftsperson. But unlike the

craftsperson, science demands much more from us.

Science also tells us that we should trust all knowledge produced by science. That we

have no means of contesting any result of science, because all that we could possibly doby way of examining the result of science has presumably been done by scientists. So I

cannot selectively accept the results of science - selecting some, rejecting others,

suspending our judgment for the moment on yet others. Even drawing our own

conclusions from certain results of science is not considered really legitimate. I cannotquestion physics even in sociology departments.

Scientists are very fond of telling us that we will break our legs when we jump from thesecond floor and we better believe in the laws of physics when flying in the airplane.

They are telling us that they are talking of hard physical reality. Of course, we do not

need physics to tell us that we break our legs if we jump from the second floor. Even ifphysics is the knowledge that explains it, it is not necessary that this knowledge will be

the same as the one that we require to mend the broken legs. When I turn around and say

that I prove the laws of physics wrong by lifting my hand whenever I want to, it isclaimed that even my thought processes are governed by laws which will be discovered

in future. Till that comes to pass, I should not entertain any alternative knowledge.

On the one hand, science gains our assent to an epistemic account, and then it claims tobe the sole executioner of the epistemic programme based on that account. Science

speaks to us in a double voice. It tells us that no authority should be respected in search

for knowledge, not even the authority of our own experience. On the other hand it asksme to put all my trust in science. Apparently because science is such knowledge which is

acquired by trusting no authority. This puts us in a puzzling situation. Should I trust this

claim or not? Should I cede all authority to science? It is like a communication from acommanding father to the son that he must think independently. Along with the message

that is communicated, there is a meta-communication taking place, which in some way

contradicts the message.


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It means that the epistemic account to which we gave our assent, is not the whole story.

There is a second part to it. This second part, even when unsaid and unwritten, can be

experienced by us, can be 'heard' by us, anytime that we might decide to contest a resultof science. This demand, this authority, is total when it concerns natural knowledge. The

position of social sciences is ambiguous and contested. But 'science' doesn't really own

up social sciences either.

This second part has no justification whatsoever. It commits us to the wisdom and

mechanisms of an institution for all foreseeable future. It is possible to see here howscience slipped into the position of authority (even if without the temporal power) that the

Church had reluctantly relinquished. I think that the addition of this second part was

made historically when the institution of science was formed in early part of 19th

century. Tremendous respect for the methods of enquiry and success of naturalphilosophy was translated into the authority of science as an institution by means of the

'double accounting' we have referred to above. How exactly they were combined to

constitute the normative structure of knowledge that science became needs examination.

I can only offer some clues here. There is a growing body of research now that locates a

major transition in science in the the 19 th century, sometimes termed a transition fromnatural philosophy to science. [2] This was when the institution of science as we know

came into existence. Disciplines took shape, the word scientist was coined and the

profession of scientist emerged, laboratory as a site of knowledge developed.

Earlier, during enlightenment, there were two ways of looking at science. [3] One of

these sought secure metaphysical foundations for science and can be called Cartesian.

The other current looked at science as an open-ended process of enquiry and this hasbeen called Pascalian. What is interesting to note is that these two were synthesized in a

specific manner in the transition from natural philosophy to science. Science emerged as

an institution of professional research with a hierarchical organization of disciplines withphysics as the most fundamental science. In this manner, science could be grounded in

the metaphysical project of finding physical explanations for everything, while each of

the disciplines was the place of open-ended enquiry by communities of researchers. Therelation between the knowledge various disciplines generated by their open-ended

enquiries was fixed in advance. You could not entertain any proposition which stood in

opposition to the metaphysical notion of a physically determined universe. Biology could

not seek psychological explanation of the phenomenon of placebo, for example. We haveto wait for a proper physical explanation. By the way, it is interesting to note that what

we call physical explanation was categorized as a metaphysical explanation by Bacon. [4]

We have noted the double aspect that the authority of science has, one based on our

assent to a certain normative framework of knowledge and the other which is implicit in

the articulation of science after its institutionalization. They combine to give anambiguity to the meaning of the whole enterprise of science.

I will refer to two other elements of the complex normative structure that science has

become now and plays important role in mediating our relationship with science. The


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first is a configuration of knowledge and experience that is part of natural philosophy and

second is the issue of relationship between science, technology and society the issue of

technological marvels.

Knowledge and Experience

Since the time of Galileo and Descartes, science has been possessed by an ideal of

certitude that propels it towards making knowledge independent of experience. Sciencebelieves that all knowledge is embodied in propositions and the very point of scientific

knowledge is to move from perception towards more and more universal propositions

expressed in a language free of experiential traces (ideally in mathematical language).

We start from a precisely demarcated fragment of experiences and perceptions and movetowards those propositions which simply stand for truth. These propositions are either

true or false, without reference to any knower and her experiences.

While knowledge is sought to be cleansed of all experiential traces, experience isdivested of its cognitive powers. Large parts of our experience is deemed to be

subjective, merely a product, a necessary product, of objective forces in operation. Aparadigmatic case is that of colour. Colour becomes a subjective sensation produced in

our head, when light interacts with our sensory apparatus. When we see colour nothing of

the world is disclosed to us. Science seeks to replace our descriptions with its own. It

overwrites them. [5]

Consider Newton's prism experiment. He lets the sunlight pass through a prism and the

light splits up into seven colours. This is the experience to be explained. These coloursare identified to correspond to certain bands of wavelengths in electromagnetic spectrum.

How is the experience explained: by means of the laws governing the passage of

electromagnetic waves through a medium. I am told now that my seeing of the colour red(and the spectrum of colours) is actually a subjective sensation created by the impact of

electromagnetic waves of certain wavelength on the retina of my eye. Colour, which was

a quality of objects that I saw, now becomes a quality of my experience.

Now, this thing that happens in the course of this explanation, the stripping of cognitive

content from experience, what is it caused by? Is it caused by the knowledge of

electromagnetic waves, or by the inferred laws governing these phenomena? Will it goaway, if one component of this knowledge is superceded by another? In short, whether

this knowledge, of electromagnetic waves, medium etc, implies that colour is a quality of

experience and not a quality of objects.

Colour may indeed be a quality of experience. Such a thing is not logically impossible.

But where does this certitude about it come from? So that even if the electromagnetictheory is replaced by quantum theory, this part of the explanation does not change. There

is something which determines what these various knowledge employed in an

explanation eventually 'show'. And whatever it is, it is impervious to changes in the body

of knowledge that it calls upon (only change is in by what the experience of something is


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substituted by, explanans substitutes explanandum in each case). And, it is the same

across a wide variety of domains.

I suggest it can be explained by the operation of a normative structure, which determines

in advance what such explanations are going to show. In his The Assayer (1623),

Galileo makes an important distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Afterhaving divided qualities into two classes, Galileo says: Hence I think that tastes, odors,

colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place

them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. [6]

Here is a gloss on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities from Pan

Dictionary of Philosophy: "A distinction made first by Democritus, revived by Galileo,

accepted by Descartes and Newton, and finding its classical formulation in Locke'sEssay. Primary qualities are those which things do actually have, secondary are really

only our reactions to these others. Locke lists as primary "solidity, extension, shape,

motion or rest, and number"; while sounds, tastes, colours, and smells are all secondary.

This division corresponds well with those between measurable and non-measurablecharacterstics, and those of which classical mechanics could and could not take account."

[7] (quote ends)

Galileo was trying to formulate a physics, he was looking for laws of motion. In the

process, he took up an old distinction and proposed an epistemic criteria. Sensual

experience was divided into two categories, one of which was stripped of cognitive value.Because he was looking for the 'mathematical laws'. In a way he opened the way for the

new natural philosophy, or physics, as we would call it now.

This criteria is normative and facilitates the creation of a new body of knowledge. Galileo

may never have contemplated its application beyond the laws of motion. In Newton's

prism experiment, it emerges as part of explanation.

Subsequently, we find this structure of explanation repeated in many fields, even though

one can not speak of primary and secondary qualities since one is not talking of justsensual experience. But by definition, except the primary qualities, which our experience

locates correctly in the object, all other qualities are deemed subjective.

Having grown in the West, this configuration of knowledge and experience would havebeen operative at first in the western societies. Here I would like to state that science as a

philosophy of right knowledge has had a social existence and a social force. It mediates

between any kind of knowledge and the society. It includes certain kinds of knowledgewithin science, excludes others, shapes and organizes scientific research, gives an identity

and authority to the scientific profession and so on. The power of this framework is

evidenced by the fact that what even great scientists may say about science is excludedfrom consideration while accepting and celebrating their contributions otherwise.

Epistemic accounts that scientists give is not a part of science. Starting from natural

philosophy, eventually this framework came to encompass the entire field of knowledge

and research, though not without opposition.


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What is unscientific is not explained as a result of error or ignorance. What is not

scientific is not knowledge at all, but something else, which is mistaken for knowledge. Itis to be explained as a necessary product of forces, cultural or natural, as an extension

of our being. Is it here that science joins colonialism? While the whole of humanity may

have a common essence, the being of the western culture could be seen to be transformedby the possession of science. The West possesses Knowledge, while other cultures only

have Being.

The Logic of Application and Testing

Consider the announcement for a seminar which is was held in the London School ofEconomics in March 2007.

What distinguishes science from all other human endeavors is that the accounts of the

world that our best, mature sciences deliver are strongly supported by evidence and thisevidence gives us the strongest reason to believe them. While this is the distinctive markof science, unanimity has still to emerge among philosophers of science about the logic

of confirmation and induction used to relate evidence to science.

The state of affairs this statement points to reveals a paradox. Scientists are continuously

producing knowledge which they know are strongly supported by evidence, but theythemselves or the philosophers of science are unable to produce an account, an epistemic

account, of the production of tested knowledge. But they are looking for an account,

which would privilege laboratory testing of knowledge, and de-link the uses of sciencefrom science. If we were to give up these pre-conditions for an account of testing in

science, it may not be difficult to produce one.

Consider the proposal: Knowledge is tested only in its application. In other words, in

order to test any knowledge-claim, we perform an action on the basis of that knowledge

and assess if the outcome is consistent with this knowledge.

To take the simplest of instances, if I say that there is a person behind that wall listening

to my presentation, you will get up from your seat and take a look around the corner. You

are testing the knowledge by performing an action based on this knowledge. If youfurther wanted to confirm whether that person is just standing there or in fact listening to

the lecture, you would signal the lecturer to stop speaking for a moment and watch the

behaviour of the person, and so on. But this knowledge has no application beyond hereand now. Knowledge that has application in multiplicity of contexts, we can call

theoretical knowledge. Science is concerned with this kind of knowledge.

If knowledge is tested only in its application, then any action to test that knowledge is

based on that knowledge itself. This should include performing an experiment. If we are

designing an experiment to test a scientific proposition or calculation, design of the

experiment will have to be guided by the same knowledge. Kuhn noted this and


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interpreted it as a consequence of theory-ladenness of facts. We have arrived at this

without using the Kuhnian conceptual apparatus.

Science makes a sharp distinction between testing of knowledge and its application.

Science is the site of production and verification of knowledge, application of this

knowledge is supposed to start after this knowledge has been transferred to the publicsphere and the technological field. There is a corresponding assumption that once the

knowledge has been passed on, the process of testing of that knowledge has ceased.

Our claim is that the sphere of application of new knowledge starts right within science

and it is central to the process of testing and verification. And it extends beyond the

boundaries of a discipline or boundaries of science, to the whole domain where this

knowledge plays any role. Since the process of application is closely tied up with testing,we can also say that the process of testing of scientific knowledge continues beyond the

sphere of science. Any situation, where an action is performed, an action in which

scientific knowledge is one of the factors, is a new test for that knowledge. When a

hybrid seed produced in the research laboratories is taken by the farmer and planted in anew soil, the hybrid seed is being tested in new conditions. When the hybrid seed is on

test, then the knowledge behind that is also on test. We can actually speak of testingscience and scientific knowledge by the impact it has had on society, for better or worse.

Accepting this proposal for an account of testing would endanger the very manner in

which science places itself within society. Science distances itself from its applicationsby means of a framework that separates verification or testing from application. We could

say it is another element of the normative structure of knowledge that is enshrined in

science.

Transformation of Science

Once we have placed the normative structure of knowledge at the heart of science, it

becomes possible to imagine a transformation of science. By transforming the normativestructure of knowledge, we imagine different relations between various sciences and

between science and other knowledge in society. What is of lasting value is the model of

cooperative quest for knowledge.

Science, in any case, is undergoing a transformation in the information age. It no longer

enjoys the authority it once did. Best students no longer opt for research in science as a

career. They choose software and management instead. University is not the only primelocation of generation of new knowledge. It is recognized now that knowledge is created

at a variety of sites. This does not mean that we have entered a wonderful era of

pluralism.

Perhaps a new global framework is taking shape, of which science is just one part. We

know about the Manhattan project and the emergence of techno-science. In a parallel

development, also rooted in the 2nd world war, a cybernetic conception of life and the


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world is developing. We move from knowledge by means of representations to

representations of knowledge. In other words, we move from science to information.

NOTES:

[1] Consider the following quotes from Vivekananda:

"Do you not see whither science is tending? The Hindu Nation proceeded through the

study of the mind, through metaphysics and logic. The European nations start fromexternal nature, and now, they too are coming to the same results." (Quoted in

Ranganathnanda: Science and Religion p.53, Ramakrishna Mission)

"By the Vedas no books are meant; they mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws

discovered by different persons at different times. Just as the laws of gravitation existedbefore its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that

govern the spiritual world.." (From the address to the Chicago Parliament of Religions

in 1893)

In my experience, many contemporary Indian scientists among others, share this kind offramework.

[2] Cunningham, Andrew and Perry Williams (1993): De-centring the big-picture:

The Origins of Modern Science and the modern origins of science in British Journal of

History of Science, 26, p. 407-32.

See also: Cahan, David (Ed). 2003). From Natural Philosophy to theSciences: Writing the History of Nineteenth Century Science, Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

[3] Frankel, Charles (1948): The Faith of Reason: The Idea of Progress in the FrenchEnlightenment, Octagon Books, New York.

[4] See Chapter 3: Francis Bacon: Why Experiments Matter in Barry Gower: Scientific

Method: An Hisotrical and Philosophical Introduction, Routledge, London, 1997.

[5] Note for example, Claude Levi-Strauss statement in his lecture on The Meeting of

Myth and Science that the real separation [between science and mythical thought]

occurred in the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. At that time, with Bacon,Descartes, Newton, and the others, it was necessary for science to build itself up against

the old generations of mythical and mystical thought, and it was thought that science

could only exist by turning its back against the world of the senses, the world we see,

smell, tastes, and perceive; the sensory was a delusive world, whereas the real world wasa world of mathematical properties which could only be grasped by the intellect and

which was entirely at odds with the false testimony of the senses. This was probably a

necessary move, for experience shows us that thanks to this separation this schism ifyou like scientific thought was able to constitute itself


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[6] See Assayer inDiscoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Tr. Stillman Drake,

Doubleday, 1957.

[7] Pan Dictionary of Philosophy, entry on primary and secondary qualities

Avinash Jha

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054

email: [email protected]

[Paper presented at the seminar European and Non-European Paradigms, Department ofSociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, 18-19 January 2007.]

science as pramana sastra

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