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Causal and Symbolic Understanding in Historical Epistemology

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Abstract

The term “historical epistemology” can be read in two different ways: (1) as referring to a program of ‘historicizing’ epistemology, in the sense of a critique of traditional epistemology’s tendency to gloss over historical context, or (2) as a manifesto of ‘epistemologizing’ history, i.e. as a critique of radical historicist and relativist approaches. In this paper I will defend a position in this second sense. I show that one can account for the historical development and diversity of science without disavowing the relevance of a (normatively understood) epistemology and without denying the existence of human cognitive universals across historical and cultural differences. In support of my thesis, I draw on cognitive scientific research on causal and symbolic cognition, arguing that causal understanding constitutes a basic part of science, which, in the course of its development, becomes more and more superimposed by a culturally and historically variable symbolic superstructure.

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Notes

  1. Such a view was also shared by my former teacher Lorenz Krüger (1932–1994) to whom this article is dedicated. Krüger played a decisive role in setting up the institution by which this conference is hosted. The topic of this conference is a getting back to the central conception he had in mind for the Max-Planck-Institute of the History of Science. Since 1996, the MPI offers an annual “Lorenz Krüger Postdoctoral Research Fellowship” in his honor. Starting almost from the moment Krüger recruited me for the preparation of a year-long research project on the history of probability and statistics at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Bielefeld (long before the foundation of the MPI was in sight), we were discussing, I am tempted to say: almost around-the-clock, problems of historical epistemology, although the term as such emerged only later in our discussions. The question that vexed us at the time was: How can the history of an epistemic concept like probability be written without historicizing too much, but also without putting history into a Procrustean bed of a priori philosophy. The struggle to come to grips with this situation finally gave way to Krüger’s original vision of the MPI.

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Correspondence to Michael Heidelberger.

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Heidelberger, M. Causal and Symbolic Understanding in Historical Epistemology. Erkenn 75, 467–482 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9343-6

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