ABSTRACTMax Weber´s sober inventory of academic life and his prophetic vision of its ‘Americanization’ highlight the impact of societies on scientific knowledge production and academic careers. Lik...

The role of scientific knowledge in general and social science knowledge in particular is changing in emerging and advanced knowledge societies. Science is becoming more important in identifying and framing social challenges and providing 'suitable and feasible' solution to decision-makers. Yet, scientific authority is increasingly challenged and contested. This increased social significance of scientific knowledge claims call for an elaborate social philosophy of science. However any attempt to develop a theoretical framework for a social philosophy of science has to face (...) three challenges: (1) an increased challenging of scientific authority, (2) the need for interdisciplinarity to cope with ever more complex problems and (3) to elaborate on a social epistemology and/ or social ontology respectively. (shrink)

At first glance the Idea of the “Unity of Science" seems to be of interest for historians of science only. However, given the expectations especially social scientists face today, to provide simple answers and feasible solutions to pressing social problems a revival of the idea is not unlikely. In particular “reductionist" ideas, aiming to adopt theoretical and methodological insight from the natural sciences thrive. This puts not only the project but also the very idea of a social philosophy of science (...) in jeopardy. For, in consequence two of its main pillars, (1) considering the social and historic circumstance of knowledge production and (2) the need for developing a philosophy of the social sciences are equally rendered irrelevant. This contribution focuses on the fundamental flaws and shortcomings of such reductionist models, argues in favor of the disunity of science and thus defends the idea of a social philosophy of science. (shrink)