ABSTRACT
Science emerged as one of the most authoritative social institutions when the new, secular form of consciousness, nationalism, refocused the attention of humanity under its sway on this world, for the first time in the history of the West, placing empirical reality on a par with, and soon after above, transcendental realms. Ben-David argued that the competence of the Israeli scientific establishment depended on its regarding itself as a part of nations whose resources allowed them to be true scientific superpowers, specifically, the United States. Ben-David was not particularly interested in the question why and how modern science emerged, why in a certain place and not elsewhere, why when it did and not at some other time. The most important question for him as a sociologist of science was the question of the structural conditions conducive to the development of science after its twin pillars, logic, and the focus and dependence on the empirical world, were firmly in place.
