Scientific controversies from a pragmatic approach

Abstract

In any scientific community there are relatively frequent divergences among its members, which may arise, for example, from slightly different interpretations of the available empirical evidence, as well as from alternative methodological choices or modeling strategies.

For this reason, there has been a gradual rapprochement between science studies and pragmatic-normative theories of argumentation. An analysis of this type is a key element to give a fair account of the rational character of scientific practice, and would allow us to resolve the oscillation between exclusively normative approaches and other exclusively descriptive approaches, which in the face of the contingencies of history question the very possibility of distinguishing between rational or epistemic factors and other irrational or non-epistemic ones (1995, 11-14; 1998, 148).

In what follows I will briefly present the characterization of scientific controversies made by Dascal (1995, 1998), with the aim of establishing points of contact between his characterization of scientific controversies and the model elaborated by F. van Eemeren and R. Grootendorst (2011). Finally, reference will be made to some theses of American pragmatist philosophers in the field of the theory of knowledge which, to a large extent, today represent a commonplace among philosophers who claim such a tradition, in order to show the suitability of such a position to characterize scientific controversies and their resolutions.