Integrating the demarcation problem of science

Abstract

The demarcation problem refers to the search for the criterion/criteria that separates science from non-science. However, by the standards of philosophers of science, no criteria proposed thus far have been able to definitively separate science from non-science. To deal with such an issue, this thesis argues that the demarcation problem should be understood not just as a problem of philosophy of science but also as a problem of philosophy of language too. This is because how one understands science (as a thing), and by extension, what activities one considers to be a part of science, cannot be separated from how science (as a word) is defined. The different approaches towards the demarcation problem examined in this thesis, including the approaches proposed by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Larry Laudan, Paul Feyerabend, Massimo Pigliucci, and David Resnik, are all premised on the semiological assumption that the word science is a linguistic sign with determinacy in form (even if Laudan’s and Feyerabend’s arguments are premised on the view that it is indeterminate in meaning). This thesis argues that to understand the difficulties in addressing the demarcation problem, linguist Roy Harris’ integrational semiology may be used. In an integrational semiology, signs are regarded as being radically indeterminate, i.e. indeterminate in both form and meaning. This thesis argues that the radically indeterminate nature of the sign is the reason why the demarcation problem has yet to be (and cannot be) solved in any definitive manner, but at the same time, that it is the reason why the problem can be (and has been) solved in specific instances of communication.