Abstract

PELAEZ CEDRES, Álvaro. Internal and External, Theoretical Rationality and Practical Rationality: Comments to Jesús Vega Encabo's Paper. Diánoia [online]. 2012, vol.57, n.69, pp.159-170. ISSN 0185-2450.

In this paper I discuss the criticisms of Jesús Vega Encabo to the models of practical rationality applied to scientific knowledge. Regardless of the pertinence of such criticisms, a commitment to that model of rationality has led to reductionist excesses in which science is seen as an enterprise moved by social, cultural, political, or economics engagements. I consider that those criticisms are tainted by a fundamental confusion between two forms of conceiving the rules that govern the scientific practice, namely, constitutives rules and regulatives rules. My remarks are addressed to this confusion.

Keywords : instrumentalism; Carnap; Rawls; constitutive; regulative.