The Disciplinary Science: The allegory of the scientific practice as sovereignty

Abstract

In this article we show how the images of sovereignty have operated in the social representations of scientific practice. We compare the way the concept of sovereignty is understood by Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben with the descriptions of the Baconian scientific practice and, from a different tradition, the one by Thomas Kuhn. We expect to show how, in both descriptions, we can find juridical and power metaphors that establish roles of subordination and obedience, as well as the decisionist character they share