Learning from the past: Reflections on the role of history in the philosophy of science
Synthese 67 (1):91 - 114 (1986)
| Abstract | In recent years philosophers of science have turned away from positivist programs for explicating scientific rationality through detailed accounts of scientific procedure and turned toward large-scale accounts of scientific change. One important motivation for this was better fit with the history of science. Paying particular attention to the large-scale theories of Lakatos and Laudan I argue that the history of science is no better accommodated by the new large-scale theories than it was by the earlier positivist philosophies of science; both are, in their different ways, parochial to our conception of rationality. I further argue that the goal of scientific methodology is not explaining the past but promoting good scientific practice, and on this the large-scale methodologies have no obvious a priori advantages over the positivist methodologies they have tried to replace. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesA. A. Derksen (1986). The Justificational Priority of Science Over the Philosophy of Science: Laudan's Science and Hypothesis. Philosophy of Science 53 (2):259-264.
James T. Cushing (1990). Is Scientific Methodology Interestingly Atemporal? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (2):177-194.
B. Larvor (2003). Why Did Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions Cause a Fuss? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34 (2):369-390.
Joseph Rouse (1998). New Philosophies of Science in North America — Twenty Years Later. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 29 (1):71-122.
Peter Machamer & Franccsca Di Poppa (2001). Rational Reconstructions Revised. Theoria 16 (3):461-480.
James W. McAllister (1986). Theory-Assessment in the Historiography of Science. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (3):315-333.
Daniel Little (2000). Explaining Large-Scale Historical Change. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 30 (1):89-112.
Peter Barker (1980). Can Scientific History Repeat? PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:20 - 28.
Ronald C. Curtis (1986). Are Methodologies Theories of Scientific Rationality? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (1):135-161.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads17 ( #70,994 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
