NATURAL REALITY AND SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY:
ALAN NELSON’S CRITIQUES TO SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7443/problemata.v16i3.72757Keywords:
Alan Nelson, construção de fatos científicos, socioconstrutivismo.Abstract
In “How Could Scientific Facts be Socially Constructed?”, Alan Nelson introduces two critical accounts against social constructivism: i) the setting of scientific beliefs is explained by social constructivists from agreements between scientists, and that is why the natural reality is left aside on that explanation; ii) there would be no universal standards of rationality to explain the resolutions made by the scientific community. The first section of this paper introduces Nelson's case which offers support for his two critical accounts. The second and third sections assess Nelson's case from the idea that, if it is true that natural reality needs to be taken into account to explain scientists' beliefs, it is also true that approaching such reality is more complex than what is meant by Nelson. At conclusion, Nelson's case against social constructivism is argued from the concept that this school would rely on counterfactual inferences; the idea is that the point raised by Nelson has no relevance as a description of the social constructivist doctrine and does not even matter for the discussion.
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