Abstract

RICHAUD DE MINZI, María Cristina. Subjective and objective causality in science: A topic for Attribution theory?. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2004, n.esp, pp.149-159. ISSN 1668-7027.

This paper will examine scientific thinking from the attribution model. According to the classical view, science was defined as the product of objective knowledge of an external reality which followed its own laws, independently from the observer who tried to uncover its secrets. Despite that, it is also incorrect to understand science as the consequence of a totally irrational mind, completely immersed in the attribution patterns of the researcher who, against all evidence to the contrary, continues holding exclusively the facts which his perception allows him to see. The cognitive theory of attribution permits a gradual change from the belief or attribution system of people in general and scientists in particular, whenever such beliefs prove to be insufficient or non-functional for explaining an environment that is constantly interacting with the individual, offering feedback and correcting his attributions. It is obviously a slow process, since it implies changing and sometimes substituting beliefs, partially and not wholly or suddenly. This perspective would ground an understanding of science as a construction dependent on a system of knowledge. This system would be warranted by rationality through contrasting tests, and it is not an objective, aseptic, and perfectly rational system; nor is it the reign of pure irrationality, and attribution, reluctant to any clear signs of non-functionality.

Keywords : Science; thinking; attribution; irrationality; constructivism.

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