Abstract

Kitcher attempts to stake out a middle ground between two extremes. On one side, logical empiricism and a broader “Legend” took it for granted that every scientist is a rational agent, having all available information in mind, and making scientific decisions in terms of those reasons alone, so that science always changes for the right reasons. These mistaken claims missed the extent to which changes in the history of science have not been based on logic; they ignored social and psychological factors as wholly irrelevant to the problems of the analysis of the purely scientific. At the other extreme are those who maintain that everything about science is shaped by social factors, omitting such “old-fashioned” philosophical virtues as objectivity, realism, and progress. For example, in Kitcher’s view, they miss the fact that the inability of a new scientific approach to solve all problems may be only temporary and not permanent indications of underdetermination, the problems being solvable only after considerable further work. By merging the best of both approaches while avoiding the excesses of each—by recognizing that psychological and social factors enter into scientific processes, even though objective considerations can ultimately prevail—Kitcher claims that we can enjoy many old-fashioned philosophical virtues “without abandoning important recent insights” from sociologically- and psychologically-minded writers..