Scientific And Technological Activities Entrusted With The Agent

David H. Guston is a famous science philosopher in20th century of America. His study area is the issues between philosophy and politics of the decision and production to the science and technology of contemporary America. He discussed the correlation of science and politics of the20th century, especially the time after the World War II. Then he produced the principal-agent theory which formed the special thoughts of his understanding of science and politics.The paper is divided into three parts as a whole to analysis the thoughts of Guston. The first part mainly introduces the background of his principal-agent theory, which included the basic introductions and the historical conditions and the sources of the theory. Start with the formation of the theory which we can clearly understand the concepts of this theory. The second part is the introductions of the specific contents of the theory. Because of the purport we’re talking about is the contract between principal-agent relation, which always exists in politics (Politian) as a role of principal and science (Scientist) as a role of agent. We can analysis the main contents and the characteristics and the usage for analyzing science policy of his principal-agent theory, we can produce a macroscopic view of his theory. The last part is based on the earlier two parts which gives an evaluation to his theory. The principal-agent theory is treated as a perfect analytical system by science policy analysts. However, this theory is just describing the economical dimensions between science and politics, it hasn’t talked about the dimensions of the power. And we can see the theory seems to make the differences between science and politics become essential while we explain the science policy from the point view of principal-agent, it just takes a part in the demarcation of them, rather than observes others how to delimit obey the advices of the constructivists. That the most important thing is Guston turns the relation between science and politics into a perfect condition when he is doing researches of their relations, but the truth is it’s difficult to find a way to keep them in a position of equality in the real world because of the power of the politics is always in the powerful position.