Internal and External, Theoretical Rationality and Practical Racionality. Comments to Jesús Vega Encabo’s Paper

Abstract

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.