Dynamics of Culture of the Scientific Community: Sociological Theories and Social Practices

The article attempts to trace changes in two elements of sociological theory, the first being descriptions of the social role and organization of the scientific community, the second — key methodological norms, prescribing certain research approaches. The first generation of sociological theories (A. Comte, H. Spencer, K. Marx, E. Durkheim) tended to see scientific community as an organizational model for society and considered that the key methodological principles, which allowed it to achieve this status, were empiricism, value-neutrality, specialization and accumulation of results. However by the end of the XIX century sociologists adopt a perspective, which treats science as a product of a certain culture, derived from its value system, and admits the relative nature of scientific knowledge (M. Weber, G. Simmel, K. Mannheim). The concept of science as a system dependent on the key values of the European civilization (particularly its protestant branch) achieved its high-point in the works of R. Merton. This point of view was reconsidered by T. Kuhn. His concept of paradigms as practices consequently achieving dominant status in sciences served as a foundation for the new wave of the sociology of science (D. Bloor, B. Barnes, K. Knorr Cetina, B. Latour), which considered scientific disciplines and schools to be separate cultures, functioning in close connection with their social contexts.An overview of the sociologists’ views on these problems allows to recognize the gradual changes in the cultural basis of the scientific community and to uncover movement from the initial desire to build a unified scientific system to division ofprofessional disciplines and further on to creation of relatively autonomous paradigms within disciplines and on their borders. The author points out that these paradigms may provide conditions for increased influence of extrinsic factors, including national cultures, on science