tional science. In Greek astronomy the homocentric planetary spheres of
Eudoxus (ca. 370 b.c.e.) became prominent; Aristarchus’ heliocentric model
(ca. 270 b.c.e.) was not generally accepted. After 300 b.c.e. Babylonian as-
tronomy and astrology were imported, which added two more systems for
solar and lunar predictions, plus a large variety of planetary theories. After
150 c.e. Ptolemy’s mathematically sophisticated comprehensive model eventu-
ally became the textbook standard, although other models survived for centu-
ries (DSB, 1981: 11:188, 202; Neugebauer, 1957: 115; Jones, 1991). In har-
monics there were rival theories dating from the Pythagoreans and from
Aristotle’s protégé Aristoxenus; Ptolemy proposed an improved model, but the
rival systems continued, and several were included by Boethius around 530
c.e. (DSB, 1981: 11:203). Outside Greece, dissensus in the technical fields of
science was common.^8
The emergence of European rapid-discovery science sharpened the differ-
ence between science and philosophy. Here the crucial difference was the
heightened degree of consensus in science. Philosophical controversies tend to
remain unresolved, and old positions are typically subject to revival. Rapid-
discovery science, however, arrives at agreement, and the older work is either
incorporated as a partial contribution or regarded as outdated. The contrast
between philosophy and science first became an explicit item of attention after
- Descartes and the other ideologists of the new “mechanical philosophy”
intended to replace one mode of intellectual life with the other. The fact that
philosophy survived as a distinctive activity, and indeed that rivalry among
philosophical positions continued in Descartes’s own day, underscores the
point that these are two different ways of organizing intellectual communities.
Nevertheless, there is similarity and even overlap among scientific and
philosophical networks. In both kinds of networks, creativity clusters in groups
and builds up in intergenerational chains. Consider now the sociological im-
plications of scientific consensus for the structural organization of the commu-
nity. Does this consensus mean that science escapes from the rivalries which
drive intellectual fields, while philosophy remains stuck in the fractionation of
three to six active positions which makes up the law of small numbers?
In fact science shows both patterns at different phases of the research
process. Science is based on rivalries and controversies while a topic is on the
research forefront. Eventually these controversies are resolved, and the losing
positions are abandoned. At this point the winning position is taken as secure
knowledge, while the field goes on to controversy over something else. These
are Bruno Latour’s (1987) two faces of science: science-in-the-making operates
like philosophy; science-already- made is science after the research front, when
consensus and cumulation prevail. Science on the research front follows the
law of small numbers, as scientists struggle by dividing along rival structurings
534 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Western Paths