The Constitution of Science#

A new publication by Professor Chrysostomos Mantzavinos, member of the Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Section of Academia Europaea.#

About the publication#

How can science be protected, by whom and at what level? If science is valued positively as the incubator of the most successful solutions to representational problems of reality as well as the basis of the most effective interventions in the natural and social world, then its constitutional foundations must be protected. This book develops a specific normative outlook on science by introducing the idea of a 'Constitution of Science'. Scientific activities are special kinds of epistemic problem-solving activities unfolding in an institutional context. The scientific enterprise is a social process unfolding within an intricate institutional framework that structures the daily activities of scientists and shapes their outcomes. Those institutions of science which are of the highest generality make up the 'Constitution of Science' and are of fundamental importance for channelling the scientific process effectively.

The book offers a radical reorientation of the discussion on the role of values in science and naarrows the divide between the traditional philosophy of science which elaborates on the standards defining science as a truth-seeking enterprise, and the sociological, economic and political outlook of science which emphasizes the contingent nature of the enterprise. It also evaluates the informal and formal institutions of science and proposes five principles that should be adopted in order for science to be protected.

Year of publication: December 2024
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781009509176

About Chrysostomos Mantzavinos#

Chrysostomos Mantzavinos is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Athens and an elected member of the Academia Europaea and the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences. He has taught at Freiburg, Stanford and Witten/Herdecke, was a senior fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn and held visiting appointments at Harvard, Princeton and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris. He is the author of Wettbewersbstheorie (1994), Individuals, Institutions and Markets (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Naturalistic Hermeneutics (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Explanatory Pluralism (Cambridge University Press, 2016), A Dialogue on Explanation (2018), A Dialogue on Institutions (2021) and the editor of Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2009).