Abstract

The development of science and technology has posed again the problem of the "legitimacy" of science and technology. Philosophy of science in the nineteenth century had such concern but recently it has lost the sensitivity to such a problematique. This article claims the recovery of this sensitivity in the sense of Social Epistemology advocated by Steve Fuller and argues that scientific research should be analyzed as a collective activity of knowledge production at face value. Then it is argued that justification of scientific knowledge is intrinsically social activity, and the identity of the content of scientific knowledge is not to be presumed but to be explained.