HOW IS SCIENCE UNIVERSAL?
HOW IS SCIENCE UNIVERSAL?

Summary/Abstract: I investigate the universality of science as perceived in epistemological conceptionsand in sociology of science, as well as claims about the anti-universal character of science. In this, I distinguish two kinds of universality of science: epistemic and globalcultural/social, and in the latter also the global universality of the basic level of science.I attempt to show that epistemology views science as universal in its basic aspects relating to knowledge, its object, subject and cognitive values as well as methods, which,according to the epistemological meta-theses, are necessary for scientific validity andautonomy. I also draw attention to the fact that sociologised, multiculturally-orientedapproaches to science are wrong to hold it for irrevocably anti-universal and exclusivelya part of Western culture. I suggest instead the perspective of basic-level global universalism, where science is seen to grow out of a cultural base common to all cultures,which provides the criteria for weak rationality, weak empiricism and methodology anddetermines the nomological character of cognition. Finally, I trace the evolution ofuniversality from a property of science to a value, and ask about the meaning of thisproperty-cum-value for the human world.

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