Seeking consensus in the social sciences

InthischapterIclarifysomeoftheterminologyusedindebatesoverthe value of scientific consensus. I distinguish between an investigative phase of science and a disseminating one and defend the first main thesis in this chapter: The meaningful question about consensus in science is not whether we should seek it or not, but rather what kind of consensus we should seek and what kind we should give up. The second issue I pursue in this chapter is how we should seek consensus in science. I will defend the second main thesis of this chapter: consensus should not be sought “in the science”, but rather “among the scientists”. In other words, subjective expertise is not a dispensable source of evidence in the social sciences, and one of the goals of methodologists should be to find the right place for expertise in the pursuit of scientific inquiry. The point of the second thesis is that there is no real contraposition between the value of subjective expertise, and the value of other (objective) methods, but both can and should contribute to the formation of scientific consensus.