Abstract
In a stimulating paper of S. Rainko, we read:
We can analyze knowledge either as a static system and concentrate on studies of its language, its structure and the procedures which it assumes (these are the problems mainly investigated by the contemporary methodology of science) or as a dynamic, continually evolving system whose development is regulated by certain rules. The first point of view could be called synchronic, the second, diachronic. Accordingly, one may speak of a synchronic and of a diachronic epistemology or methodology. The traditional history of science was not able to provide a theory of evolution of knowledge and remained an ideographic discipline with its own specific field of interests. It seems that even in view of the changes that history of science underwent in recent times, it cannot replace the methodological analysis of problems posed by evolution of knowledge. For this we need a separate discipline, but one that would remain in close contact with history of science.1
This statement is in full agreement with what we have said above. The “separate discipline that would remain in close contact with history of science” (and — we might add — with the sociology of knowledge) is just what we have earlier called the philosophy of science.
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Notes
S. Rainko, ‘Epistemiologia diachroniczna, zarys problematyki’ Studia Filozoficzne, No. 48, 1967, p. 3.
As Lakatos rightly stated: “As an epistemological programme it has been degenerating for a long time; as a historiographical programme it never even started.” ‘History and its Rational Reconstructions’, p. 128, n. 70.
K. R. Popper, L.S.D., pp. 15–16. See also Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 28.
“Why did the logical empiricists have no interest in the logic of discovery? The historian of thought may explain this in the following way. Neoclassical empiricism replaced the old idol of classical empiricism — certainty — by the new idol of exactness. But one cannot describe the growth of knowledge, the logic of discovery, in ‘exact’ terms, one cannot put it in formulae: it has, therefore, been branded a largely ‘irrational’ process; only its completed (and ‘formalised’) product that can be judged rationally. But these ‘irrational’ processes are a matter for history or psychology; there is no such thing as a ‘scientific’ logic of discovery.” I. Lakatos, ‘Changes in the Problem of Inductive Logic’ in Lakatos, (ed.) The Problem of Inductive Logic, Amsterdam 1968, p. 328. And further: “…the Carnapians concentrating mostly on a rational ‘synchronic’ reconstruction of science and the Popperians remaining mostly interested in the ‘diachronic’ growth of science… I think the lack of recognition of this interdependence is an important shortcoming of logical empiricism in general and Carnap’s confirmation theory in particular.” Ibid., p. 329ff. It might be added here that Lakatos shares Popper’s opinion of a logic of scientific discovery which could account for the evolution of knowledge and which would be limited to the context of discovery if possible. Although I accept the criticism of logical empiricism as limited to synchronic problems, I cannot, however, accept this opinion on the possibility of conducting a diachronic epistemiology limited to the context of discovery.
H. Feigl, ‘Philosophy of Science’ in R. M. Chisholm et al. (eds.), Philosophy, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1965, p. 472.
K. R. Popper, L.S.D., p. 31.
The basic difference between the Husserlian understanding of the laws of logic as belonging to the universe of ideal relations and the neopositivist position, which understands them as linguistic rules, is irrelevant at this point. The antipsychologism of both positions is self-evident.
We will have the occasion later on in this study to note that Popper’s limitation of the philosophy of science to logical problems forces him to introduce into his methodology a number of conventionalist theses.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 3.
T. S. Kuhn, ‘Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research’ in I. Lakatos (ed.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, p. 21.
See K. R. Popper, ‘Normal Science and Its Dangers’, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp. 51–59 and I. Lakatos ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, ibid., pp. 91–197, and in particular pp. 92–93.
P. K. Feyerabend, ‘Problems of Empiricism’ in Colodny (ed.), Beyond the Edge of Certainty, Englewood Cliffs 1965, pp. 145–260.
P. K. Feyerabend, ‘Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism’ in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III, 1962, pp. 28–29 and ‘Consolation for a Specialist’ in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp. 197–231.
M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, London 1958
M. Polanyi, Knowing and Being, London 1969.
K. R. Popper, ‘Epistemology without a Knowing Subject’ in Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 333–373. It is worth noting that such an understanding of science, as a system of formulated statements, differs from the position which sees it as a set of all possible statements which may be formulated on the basis of a deductive system irrespective of whether they have ever been formulated.
(See K. Ajdukiewicz, ‘Metanauka i metodologia’ [Metascience and Methodology] in Język i poznanie [[Language and Cognition]]), Vol. II, Warsaw 1965, pp. 117–126.
Ibid., p. 81.
“But this reconstruction would not describe these processes as they actually happen: it can give only a logical skeleton of the procedure of testing. Still, this is perhaps all that is meant by those who speak of a ‘rational reconstruction’ of the way in which we gain knowledge.” K. R. Popper, L.S.D., pp. 31–32.
In distinction to Popper, who clearly claimed that the aim of the philosophy of science is to provide researchers with a rational model of procedure, Lakatos states that the basic aim of methodology is to provide not models of procedure, but rules for the evaluation of already articulated theories (‘History and its Rational Reconstructions’, p. 92).
I. Lakatos, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Programmes’, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, p. 138.
I. Lakatos, ‘History and its Rational Reconstructions’, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VIII, Dordrecht 1972, p. 91.
Ibid, p. 108.
Ibid., p. 105.
Ibid., p. 91.
Ibid., p. 106 (my italics — S. A.).
Ibid. ibid. p. 92 (my italics — S.A.).
Ibid., Chapter 7: ‘Rival Methodologies of Science’, see also J. Agassi, Towards an Historiography of Science, The Hague 1963, where an analysis of the influence of inductionism on the historiography of science may be found.
I. Lakatos, op. cit., pp. 108–122.
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Amsterdamski, S. (1975). The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification. In: Between Experience and Metaphysics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1797-8_3
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