Abstract
The thesis that scientific terms are all, or for a great part, theory-laden is quite generally accepted today. In recent years, this thesis has prompted a profound revision of the classical, positivistic philosophy of science which construed scientific laws and theories as founded on the solid, immutable rock of sense data existing “out there,” independently of the observer and of his theoretical conceptions. The new, non-(or anti-) positivistic outlook brought to the fore the interdependence of theory and observation. Numerous studies worked out the implications of this new stance for the history, the sociology, and the philosophy of science.
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References
H. Metzger, “La méthode philosophique dans l’histoire des sciences,” Archeion 19(1937): 205.
H. Metzger, “L’a priori dans la doctrine scientifique et l’histoire des sciences,” Archeion 18 (1936): 33.
H. Metzger, “Les différents aspects de la même époque d’une civilisation (lettres, sciences, arts) peuvent-ils être considérés comme autant de projections variées d’un même état d’esprit?…” Archeion 12 (1930): 375–378.
H. Metzger, Les concepts scientifiques, Paris: Alcan, 1926, p. 35.
H. Metzger, Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton, Paris: Hermann, 1938, p. 9.
R. Horton, “African Traditional Thought and Western Science”, Africa 37 (1967): 50–71, 155–187.
H. Metzger, “Review of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, La mythologie primitive. Le monde mythique des Australiens et des Papous, Paris: Alcan, 1935,” Archeion 17 (1935): 106.
H. Metzger, “Review of Léon Brunschwicg, Les âges de l’intelligence, Paris: Alcan, 1934,” Archeion 16 (1934): 254.
H. Metzger, “Review of George Sarton,The Study of the History of Science, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936,” Archeion 18 (1936): 378.
H. Metzger, “La signification de l’histoire de la pensée scientifique,” Scientia 57 (1935): 452.
H. Metzger, “Tribunal de l’histoire et théorie de la connaissance scientifique,”Archeion 17 (1935): 11.
Quoted from J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. J. J. Shapiro, London: Heinemann, 1972, p. 178.
This point has been forcefully developed by Paul Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distantiation,” in: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. and trans. J. B. Thompson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981, pp. 130–144.
H. Metzger, “L’historien des sciences, doit-il se faire le contemporain des savants dont il parle?” Archeion 15 (1933): 35f.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Freudenthal, G. (1988). The Hermeneutical Status of the History of Science: The Views of Hélène Metzger. In: Ullmann-Margalit, E. (eds) Science in Reflection. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 110. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2957-9_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2957-9_11
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