Philosophy of Science and History of Science

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Philosophy of Science and History of Science

Journal Title: Studia Historiae Scientiarum - Year 2014, Vol 13, Issue

Abstract

The paper focuses on relations between philosophy of science and history of science. Two models of science are considered. The first is provided by formal methodology (philosophy) of science. It assumes that (1) there exists an effective criterion of demarcation between science and non -science (in particular, pseudo -science); (2) science manifests itself in the same manner in all historical epochs; (3) science as a result (in particular, a system of propositions), not science as an activity, is the primary subject of philosophical investigations; (4) philosophy of science concentrates mostly on the context of justification, not the context of discovery. Consequently, formal logic provides analytic devices for philosophy of science and history has a secondary importance. The second approach, the historical philosophy of science (or historicisms in the philosophy of science), denies the assumptions (1)–(4). Hence, the history of science is of the utmost importance for the philosophy of science. More specifically, history of science provides empirical data for the philosophy of science. As Imre Lakatos once said (it is a paraphrase of Kant) “Philosophy of science without history of science is empty, history of science without philosophy of science is blind”. According to Lakatos, a rational reconstruction of the history of science constitutes the main task of the philosophy of science. The adjective “rational” indicates here that this reconstruction must be guided by principles elaborated by philosophical reflection. Lakatos’s own proposal in this respect is captured by his famous idea of research programs as units organizing concrete scientific investigations and their development. The methodology of research programs is Lakatos’s answer to Kuhn’s philosophy of science as based on the concept of the paradigm of scientific activity accepted by scientists in a particular period. Lakatos objected that the acceptance of paradigms is, according to Kuhn, too irrational. In fact Lakatos wanted to combine Popper’s idea of the logic of scientific discover and Kuhn’s historicism. There are several objections to historicism. Disregarding one of the standard  critical observations, namely that concerning the ambiguity of the terms “research program” and “paradigm”, one can observe that the concepts of the external history of science and the internal history of science are unclear in philosophical theories of science offered by Kuhn and Lakatos. Similar remarks apply to Paul Feyerabend’s rule “Everything goes” as admitting any methodology of scientific investigations. Since the representatives of historicism are almost exclusively interested in the internal history of science, they overlook the external history of science and blame it as naïve and consisting of popular stories concerning accidental circumstances related to great discoveries (Newton’s apple or killing of Archimedes). The author argues that this attitude is unjustified. Clearly, any elaboration of the actual history is selective and thereby must appeal to some criteria of selection. On the other hand, too excessive use of philosophy in historical reconstruction converts history of science into histori- osophy (speculative history) of science.

Authors and Affiliations

Jan WOLEŃSKI

Keywords

EP ID EP116891
DOI -
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