Knowledge and Social Practice: Robert Brandom and the Strong Programme

This paper revisits the debates around David Bloor's 1976 Knowledge and Social Imagery, which introduced the 'strong programme' in the sociology of scientific knowledge. We summarise the methodological precepts of the strong programme, and the most prominent criticisms directed at it, including particularly charges that the strong programme devolves into antiscientific relativism. We argue that the impasse suggested by these debates could potentially be resolved using some of the tools provided by the recent work of philosopher Robert Brandom. While not explicitly operating within the sociology of science, Brandom's metatheory, we suggest, can point the way towards a social theory of knowledge which is causal, impartial, symmetrical and reflexive in Bloor's senses, while also retaining a robust concept of objectivity.