Abstract

This paper concerns the question whether the rational reconstruction of science provided by the philosophy of science is partly descriptive and partly normative task. To this respect we offer a general characterization of the concept of science and observe then briefly the relations between the history and the philosophy of science. The widely extended view that there cannot be a history of science without an underIying philosophy suggests the problem whether it can exist a rational reconstruction of science independently from any theory about the science. On the answer to this question depends that we could conceive the philosophy of science as a discipline which combines descriptive with normative eIements.