case of the high-prestige wing of contemporary intellectuals, the scientists.
Sociologists of science have stripped away the idealizations with which scien-
tists have traditionally presented their results, hiding their actual investigation
and negotiation, as if they produced scientific truths untouched by human
hands. It does not necessarily follow that the dirty work of science, its ordinary
constructive activities, undermines its truth. On the other side of the conflict,
many sociologists have pursued the investigation of other disciplines in a
debunking mood, again not sociologically surprising in that the social energies
of intellectual life come from uncovering lines of disagreement. To repeat the
conclusions arrived at: social construction per se does not necessarily under-
mine truth, for there is no other way that true statements could arise than by
the activities of social networks. And since social constructivism is itself a form
of realism, it can ally itself with realism in science and mathematics.
This leaves a region of the intellectual world in which sociological realism
may not take us very far. The law of small numbers continues to determine
the pattern of creativity in philosophy, sociology, and other humanistic and
social research disciplines. Does this mean that there is no single reality, no
truth, in these fields?
One way out of this conclusion is the possibility that multiple realities and
competing truths will turn out to be complementary. We may hope that the
situation is that of the many blind men touching different parts of the same
elephant; more appropriately, since that image is too static, we may hope that
the competing factions of philosophers or sociologists are pursuing multiple
paths of advance into the same wilderness. But it is also possible that this will
not be the case; a unified map may never be filled in because the paths may
never intersect.
The social processes of intellectual life imply that the future will consist in
still further fanning out rather than convergence. New topics are constructed
by combining previous chains of intellectual work. The research topics and
theoretical perspectives of the previous generation can always be combined to
yield new studies.^14 Crossing disciplinary boundaries expands the possibilities
still further. Reflexive methods, treating a topic from the viewpoint of its
history, of feminist critique, of its social production, of textual rhetoric, and
other standpoints, results in further fanning out in the pattern of permutations
and combinations. Still more topics can be created as higher levels of abstrac-
tion and reflexivity, taken over from the long-term sequence of philosophical
life, make it possible to re-study earlier problems at successive levels of the
abstraction-reflexivity sequence. The endless fanning out of intellectual com-
binations does not happen mechanically, and does not exclude work that
will be received as striking and insightful. There is a premium on being able
to crystallize new gestalts which bring ingredients together. And throughout,
Epilogue: Sociological Realism^ •^879