Sharply contrasting with the subjectivist views of the last two chapters is the objectivist view. What, then, is the objectivist view? That view suggests that there is a mind-independent reality, and that not only scientific theories but philosophical ones as well are deemed adequate only if they capture, reflect, mirror, correspond to, depict – or whatever – that reality. The view has descended, not without transformation, from Plato. To many it has seemed an exceedingly plausible view, and it is taken to have solved some deep issues in philosophy of science. In methodology, there are two objectivist views that can be fairly regarded as classical: the inductivist view and the deductivist view. The first was given birth by Francis Bacon; the second, three centuries later, by Karl Popper. My interest is not in the differences, the details, or the historical development of these views. It is rather in what these views would have said, if they had considered the problem of group rationality. My aim is to show that, given their respective traditions, they would have offered inadequate theories of group rationality. I shall argue primarily against the second deductivist view, but my arguments also apply to the first, because despite their dissimilarities, they have a lot in common.

To the question “Under what conditions is a scientific society ratio-nal?” the objectivist view would reply, “It is rational when the society is governed by the single best available method.