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Reconstructed Science as Philosophical Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Nancy L. Maull
Nancy L. Maull*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Since there is a philosophy of science, it is not surprising that philosophers make use of case studies from the history of science in their work. However, the uses to which such case studies can be put depend on important, but not always acknowledged, ideas about how to understand science. According to one view, philosophy provides a theoretically precise account of science,and case studies are the raw material which, when reinterpreted according to a theoretical account, illustrate that account. Thus, just as formal logic is sometimes said to reduce ordinary language to a fixed and, from one standpoint, more convenient form, so the philosophy of science is often thought to perform a similar function for science. But other philosophers, with different ideas about how to understand science, think that case studies from the history of science can provide evidence for philosophy's claims about (scientific) rationality.

Type
Part IV. History and Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1976 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1976 , 1976 , pp. 118 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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