Abstract

How does the philosophy of science learn from history? Imre Lakatos argued that we can criticize various methodologies by testing them against the basic value judgments of working scientists in history. If a methodology gives a judgment which is dissonant with that of working scientists, this should be seen as a criticism of the methodology which may have to be rejected in favour of a better one. Lakatos based his argument on the view that methodologies are theories of scientific rationality. To accept a methodology which is dissonant with history is, on this view, to accept that the history of science is not rational. ;This does not follow however if we reject the idea, as I think we should, that methodologies are theories of scientific rationality. I argue this point using the example of Charles Darwin. The rationality of his approach consisted not in the fact that it can be reconstructed to accord with some methodology which the modern historian would be able to accept. Rather it consisted in his critical decision to be guided by a methodology which we now have good reasons to regard as in many ways mistaken--the methodology of William Whewell. ;Darwin's tentative, critical acceptance of Whewell's philosophy led to the rational growth of science as Darwin was forced to develop his theory of evolution in areas not initially intended in order to criticize some parts of Whewell's creationist epistemology. And it led to the rational growth of metascience as Darwin was eventually able to develop critical arguments against the Baconian elements in Whewell which he had at first accepted, giving us good reasons--when we are wise after the event--for regarding Whewell's methodology as a mistake. Philosophy learned from the history of Darwin's work in a way not envisaged by Lakatos. Thus we should not follow Lakatos and treat Whewellian metascience as a non-rational, external influence on science. But if we treat it as internal and rational we must accept the existence of rational metascientific error in history, something there is no place for in Lakatos.