La quatrième dimension de « la structure normative de la science » Réflexions sur l’évolution de l’éthos scientifique à partir d’une enquête exploratoire sur les financements européens de la recherche à finalité militaire dans les universités

Chaumont, Jean-Michel
(2020) Sociologies — (2020)

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  • Chaumont, Jean-Michelorcid-logoUCLouvain
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Abstract
(en) Is research serving a military purpose compatible with the scientific ethos as described by Robert K. Merton in 1942? First of all, after recalling its main characteristics, the author distinguishes four dimensions to this ethos: technical rule, community standard, moral value and political ideal. The latter is the subject of a particularly clear explanation in the book entitled La morale de la science by the French sociologist Albert Bayet, also a founding member of the Union Rationaliste. Secondly, we examine the evolution of the ethos as it has been analysed by the sociologists of science over the last three decades: it emerges that the Mertonian ethos has given way to a "post-academic" ethos at the antipodes of the first. This evolution could explain the lack of reaction to the announcement of future European funding for research with a military purpose. In conclusion, one wonders what would be the 4th dimension of the contemporary scientific ethos; one wonders in particular about the missions of sociology in the emerging configuration; one is puzzled that a section of critical sociology reinforces rather than resists the ethnocentric tendencies currently at work.
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Chaumont, J.-M. (2020). La quatrième dimension de « la structure normative de la science » Réflexions sur l’évolution de l’éthos scientifique à partir d’une enquête exploratoire sur les financements européens de la recherche à finalité militaire dans les universités. Sociologies. Published. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/117693 (Original work published 2020)