Philosophy of science and history of science: A troubling interaction (original) (raw)
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International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2017
In this article, I explore the value of philosophy of science for history of science. I start by introducing a distinction between two ways of integrating history and philosophy of science: historical philosophy of science (HPS) and philosophical history of science (PHS). I then offer a critical discussion of Imre Lakatos’s project to bring philosophy of science to bear on historical interpretation. I point out certain flaws in Lakatos’s project, which I consider indicative of what went wrong with PHS in the past. Finally, I put forward my own attempt to bring out the historiographical potential of philosophy of science. Starting from Norwood Russell Hanson’s insight that historical studies of science involve metascientific concepts, I argue that philosophical reflection on those concepts can be (and, indeed, has been) historiographically fruitful. I focus on four issues (epistemic values, experimentation, scientific discovery and conceptual change) and discuss their significance and utility for historiographical practice.
Introduction: History of Science and Philosophy of Science
Perspectives on Science, 2002
The four papers and the comment that make up the bulk of this issue of Perspectives on Science, originated in a session organized by Friedrich Steinle for a meeting of the History of Science Society in Denver in 2001. We were struck by the extent to which, in spite of their differences, each of the papers managed to surmount some of the obstacles that beset the delicate, and sometimes difªcult, relationship between history of science and philosophy of science. The authors have reworked their papers to highlight the intimate interactions in their work between detailed history of science and some core issue(s) in philosophy of science. The papers deal with different historical episodes and the authors speak from distinctively divergent viewpoints, but each of them develops speciªc ways of intertwining historical and philosophical work in ways that improve both the historical studies and the philosophical analysis. This is an accomplishment of no small importance. Attempts to bring historical and philosophical studies of science into close contact with one another have a relatively long history. During an important formative period for the philosophy of science in the nineteenth century, many authors, perhaps most notably William Whewell, sought to base general accounts of science on serious studies of its history (see The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History, 1840). Although the history and the philosophy of science have often proceeded in considerable independence of one another, ever since Whewell's groundbreaking work there have been notable attempts to provide a historical footing for general philosophies of science. One need only think of Duhem or Mach or, since the 1960s, Hacking, Kuhn, Lakatos, Latour, and Laudan-and many more. Recently, however, mainstream history of science and mainstream philosophy of science have gone in different directions. History of science
The history of the philosophy of science: a broader perspective
1979
In tracing the history of the philosophy of science, there has emerged a tendency to become fixated on one line of development, Which has constituted the point of reference to which all commentators are expected to orient themselves, no matter how fundamental their criticisms of it, no matter how deep i their commitment to charting a new way forward. The consensus undoubtedly I is that t~e five main dramatis personae in 20th century philosophy of~cience I are Carnap, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. In reaching further baclS Hume and Mach are counted as their predecessors. I ical world view. The philosophers, essentially technocrats, abandoned the field. leaving it wide open for the gurus of the counter-culture. 1
Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science
Isis, 2008
In surveying the field of history and philosophy of science (HPS), it may be more useful just now to pose some key questions than it would be to lay out the sundry competing attempts to unify H and P. The ten problems this essay presents are grounded in a range of work of enormous interest-historical and philosophical work that has made use of productive categories of analysis: context, historicism, purity, and microhistory, to name but a few. What kind of account are we after-historically and philosophically-when we attempt to address science not as a vacuous generality but in its specific, local formation?