Bourdieu’s Theory of the Scientific Field and Its Limits Regarding Scientific Validity

The form and content of knowledge can be varied with different social and historical conditions and organizations of science. This paper attempts to understand what such variation of knowledge implies for the objectivity of knowledge by critically assessing Bourdieu’s theory of the scientific field. Bourdieu’s theory of the scientific field stands as a strong candidate for a synthesis of epistemological and political analyses of knowledge. Bourdieu’s notion of ‘relative autonomy’ of the scientific field attempt to find a third way between scientific rationalism and sociological relativism by suggesting social mechanisms that can secure both epistemic and political validity. In addition, Bourdieu’s notion of scientific field brings an insight into the competitive but hierarchical interrelation between knowledge producers. Nonetheless, Bourdieu fails to deal with both the epistemology and politics/ethics of knowledge equally. Bourdieu underplays the politics of knowledge as a result of his emphasis on the objectivity produced within the autonomous scientific field. WhileBourdieusian scientific field is supposed to be autonomously structured and produce single scientific and political objectivity, there are more validities than the philosophers and Bourdieu, the ‘sociologist king’ suppose. After examining key concepts in Bourdieu’s theory of the scientific field, this paper will show how Bourdieu fails to vindicate the epistemic and political validities of the scientific field especially by critiquing his notion of ‘relative autonomy’.