ABSTRACT
There are many different kinds of science and therefore many different types of justification. Underlying them, however, are two major kinds of consideration, two kinds of goal which exercise pulls on scientific endeavour. Though not exactly opposites, these two often appear to pull in different directions. They are, in a way, like two poles of attraction which set up a field of force within which views on the social repercussions of science fall and in terms of which particular cases can be analyzed. Science has, in any case, no monopoly of rationality. Quite on the contrary—the mediaeval tradition of scholasticism which Galileo helped to undermine was in some ways more rational, in that it relied more exclusively on the reasoning faculty of the human mind. Bacon’s background was very different from Galileo’s and so, accordingly, was the nature of his contribution. Obviously science can generate material benefits.
