Abstract
I must begin by thanking the editors of this volume, Tad Schmaltz and Sy Mauskopf, for inviting me to reflect on my views of the changing relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science since publication of my review article, “History and Philosophy of Science: Intimate Relationship or Marriage of Convenience” (Giere 1973). Of course, not only has the relationship between these two fields changed; my views of the relationship have also changed.
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- 1.
As a sidelight, I should mention that my choice of the marriage metaphor might have been influenced by the fact that I was at that time in the midst of a divorce.
- 2.
HPS at Indiana is solely a graduate department. Although some undergraduate courses are taught, there has never been an undergraduate major. That was part of the agreement with the Philosophy Department when HPS was founded.
- 3.
This review was personally commissioned by the then editor of BJPS, Imre Lakatos, over drinks in London. He had some very definite instructions on what the review should say. I don’t remember what they were, but, in any case, I did not follow them.
- 4.
It is worth recalling that Hanson’s view of HPS prominently featured the idea that philosophers should help historians assess the validity of arguments offered by historical figures for various hypotheses, given the evidence available at the time (Hanson 1962). Standards of validity, however, are arrived at independently of any historical facts. While acknowledging that judgments of the weight of evidence are not necessarily deductive, he did not much concerned himself with debates over the best inductive methods then going on among such major figures as Carnap, Reichenbach, and Popper, who (initially) advocated a pure deductivism. I owe these notes on Hanson’s views to Matthew Lund (2010).
- 5.
This applies only to what is called the “general” philosophy of science. The philosophy of the special sciences should be treated separately. This work is sometimes done within an autonomous philosophical framework, such as logic. It is also sometimes done in the scientists’ own frameworks, in which case it is automatically naturalized.
- 6.
I announced this program in my 1985 paper, “Philosophy of Science Naturalized” (Giere 1985). The title was obviously modeled on Quine’s “Epistemology Naturalized” (1969), although I was little influenced by Quine. In fact, I came up with the title first and then hurried to write a paper to go with it since others were sure to come up with the same idea. Indeed, shortly before the paper came out, Don Campbell telephoned me to suggest we write a paper together with just that title. I sheepishly informed him that my paper with that title was forthcoming.
- 7.
The foremost advocate of the cognitive study of science (Nersessian 2005), has recently attempted to cross the divide between cognitive and social studies of science, coming from the cognitive side.
- 8.
References
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Giere, R.N. (2011). History and Philosophy of Science: Thirty-Five Years Later. In: Mauskopf, S., Schmaltz, T. (eds) Integrating History and Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 263. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1745-9_5
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