Resumen

FREITAS, Renan Springer de. The saga of the good science ideal. Rev. bras. Ci. Soc. [online]. 2004, vol.19, n.55, pp. 91-105. ISSN 0102-6909.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69092004000200006.

The collapse of the Baconian ideal of good science, the subsequent failure of the empiricists of the Vienna Circle in establishing a substitute ideal, and the pertinence of Pierre Duhem's criticism to the rationalist ideal have led the reflection on what is good science to either submit itself to a naturalistic analysis of the process of knowledge acquisition or, simply, dissolve itself into some kind of socio-psychology of knowledge. The article suggests that none of these forms of capitulation is necessary. A reflection on what good science is, or, to use a more familiar term, methodology, can find its way again by taking the position it has always been entitled to, namely that of the very guide of the history of science. The article both claims that methodology has been led to the deepest part of a well from which it will not be able to leave unless it takes a vertiginous leap, and discusses the viability of this leap.

Palabras llave : Methodology; History of science; Naturalism; Sociology of knowledge; Epistemology.