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Shattering the Myth of Semmelweis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Dana Tulodziecki
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Abstract

The case of Semmelweis has been well known since Hempel. More recently, it has been revived by Peter Lipton, Donald Gillies, Alexander Bird, Alex Broadbent, and Raphael Scholl. While these accounts differ on what exactly the case of Semmelweis shows, they all agree that Semmelweis was an excellent reasoner. This widespread agreement has also given rise to a puzzle: why Semmelweis’s views were rejected for so long. I aim to dissolve both this puzzle and the standard view of Semmelweis by showing that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Semmelweis was not the excellent reasoner he has been assumed to be.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 1065 - 1075
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Many thanks to the Center for Philosophy of Science (University of Pittsburgh) for a visiting fellowship for 2011–12, during which I wrote this article. I would also like to thank Bob Batterman, Uljana Feest, John Norton, Philip Robbins, Miriam Solomon (who first suggested I take another look at Semmelweis), Adrian Wüthrich, Alison Wylie, and audiences at the Center and the PSA 2012.

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