History and philosophy of science

Short description: Academic discipline

The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained primarily as either historians or as philosophers, there are degree-granting departments of HPS at several prominent universities. Though philosophy of science and history of science are their own disciplines, history and philosophy of science is a discipline in its own right.[1][2]

Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics/ontology and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than philosophy of science.

There is no consensus among philosophers about many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science, including whether science can reveal the truth about unobservable things and whether scientific reasoning can be justified at all. In addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of science consider problems that apply to particular sciences (such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, Earth science, or physics). Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy itself.

## History

One origin of the unified discipline is the historical approach to the discipline of the philosophy of science. This hybrid approach is reflected in the career of Thomas Kuhn. His first permanent appointment, at the University of California, Berkeley,[3] was to a position advertised by the philosophy department, but he also taught courses from the history department. When he was promoted to full professor in the history department only, Kuhn was offended at the philosophers' rejection because "I sure as hell wanted to be there, and it was my philosophy students who were working with me, not on philosophy but on history, were nevertheless my more important students".[4] This attitude is also reflected in his historicist approach, as outlined in Kuhn's seminal Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 2nd ed. 1970), wherein philosophical questions about scientific theories and, especially, theory change are understood in historical terms, employing concepts such as paradigm shift.

However, Kuhn was also critical of attempts fully to unify the methods of history and philosophy of science: "Subversion is not, I think, too strong a term for the likely result of an attempt to make the two fields into one. They differ in a number of their central constitutive characteristics, of which the most general and apparent is their goals. The final product of most historical research is a narrative, a story, about particulars of the past. [...] The philosopher, on the other hand, aims principally at explicit generalizations and at those with universal scope. He is no teller of stories, true or false. His goal is to discover and state what is true at all times and places rather than to impart understanding of what occurred at a particular time and place."[5] More recent work questions whether these methodological and conceptual divisions are in fact barriers to a unified discipline.[6]

## See also

* Index of philosophy of science articles
* Historical epistemology
* Historiography of science
* History of science and technology
* Sociology of the history of science

## References

1. ↑ Galison, Peter (March 2008). "Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science". Isis 99 (1): 111–124. doi:10.1086/587536.
2. ↑ Weingart, Scott B. (February 2015). "Finding the History and Philosophy of Science". Erkenntnis 80 (1): 201–213. doi:10.1007/s10670-014-9621-1.
3. ↑ "A Discussion with Thomas S. Kuhn" in The Road Since Structure, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 302.
4. ↑ "A Discussion with Thomas S. Kuhn," p. 302.
5. ↑ "The Relations Between the History and the Philosophy of Science," pp. 3–20 in The Essential Tension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
6. ↑ Lydia Patton, Philosophy, Science, and History, pp. 27–33, New York: Routledge 2014, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415898317/.

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Philosophy of science

| Concepts|

* Analysis
* Analytic–synthetic distinction
* A priori and a posteriori
* Causality
* Commensurability
* Consilience
* Construct
* Creative synthesis
* Demarcation problem
* Empirical evidence
* Explanatory power
* Fact
* Falsifiability
* Feminist method
* Functional contextualism

* Ignoramus et ignorabimus
* Inductive reasoning
* Intertheoretic reduction
* Inquiry
* Nature
* Objectivity
* Observation
* Paradigm
* Problem of induction
* Scientific law
* Scientific method
* Scientific revolution
* Scientific theory
* Testability
* Theory choice
* Theory-ladenness
* Underdetermination
* Unity of science

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Metatheory
of science|

* Coherentism
* Confirmation holism
* Constructive empiricism
* Constructive realism
* Constructivist epistemology
* Contextualism
* Conventionalism
* Deductive-nomological model
* Hypothetico-deductive model
* Inductionism
* Epistemological anarchism
* Evolutionism
* Fallibilism
* Foundationalism
* Instrumentalism
* Pragmatism
* Model-dependent realism
* Naturalism
* Physicalism
* Positivism / Reductionism / Determinism
* Rationalism / Empiricism
* Received view / Semantic view of theories
* Scientific realism / Anti-realism
* Scientific essentialism
* Scientific formalism
* Scientific skepticism
* Scientism
* Structuralism
* Uniformitarianism
* Vitalism

Philosophy of|

* Physics
* thermal and statistical
* Motion
* Chemistry
* Biology
* Environment
* Geography
* Social science
* Technology
* Engineering
* Artificial intelligence
* Computer science
* Information
* Mind
* Psychiatry
* Psychology
* Perception
* Space and time

Related topics|

* Alchemy
* Criticism of science
* Epistemology
* Faith and rationality
* History and philosophy of science
* History of science
* History of evolutionary thought
* Logic
* Metaphysics
* Pseudoscience
* Relationship between religion and science
* Rhetoric of science
* Science studies
* Sociology of scientific knowledge
* Sociology of scientific ignorance

Philosophers of science by era

| Ancient|

* Plato
* Aristotle
* Stoicism
* Epicureans

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Medieval|

* Averroes
* Avicenna
* Roger Bacon
* William of Ockham
* Hugh of Saint Victor
* Dominicus Gundissalinus
* Robert Kilwardby

Early modern|

* Francis Bacon
* Thomas Hobbes
* René Descartes
* Galileo Galilei
* Pierre Gassendi
* Isaac Newton
* David Hume

Late modern|

* Immanuel Kant
* Friedrich Schelling
* William Whewell
* Auguste Comte
* John Stuart Mill
* Herbert Spencer
* Wilhelm Wundt
* Charles Sanders Peirce
* Wilhelm Windelband
* Henri Poincaré
* Pierre Duhem
* Rudolf Steiner
* Karl Pearson

Contemporary|

* Alfred North Whitehead
* Bertrand Russell
* Albert Einstein
* Otto Neurath
* C. D. Broad
* Michael Polanyi
* Hans Reichenbach
* Rudolf Carnap
* Karl Popper
* Carl Gustav Hempel
* W. V. O. Quine
* Thomas Kuhn
* Imre Lakatos
* Paul Feyerabend
* Jürgen Habermas
* Ian Hacking
* Bas van Fraassen
* Larry Laudan
* Daniel Dennett

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History of science

Background|

* Theories and sociology
* Historiography
* Pseudoscience

By era|

* Early cultures
* Classical Antiquity
* The Golden Age of Islam
* Renaissance
* Scientific Revolution
* Romanticism

By culture|

* African
* Byzantine
* Medieval European
* Chinese
* Indian
* Medieval Islamic
* Korean

Natural sciences|

* Astronomy
* Biology
* Botany
* Chemistry
* Ecology
* Evolution
* Geology
* Geophysics
* Paleontology
* Physics

Mathematics|

* Algebra
* Calculus
* Combinatorics
* Geometry
* Logic
* Probability
* Statistics
* Trigonometry

Social sciences|

* Anthropology
* Economics
* Geography
* Linguistics
* Political science
* Psychology
* Sociology
* Sustainability

Technology|

* Agricultural science
* Computer science
* Materials science
* Engineering

Medicine|

* Human medicine
* Veterinary medicine
* Anatomy
* Neuroscience
* Neurology and neurosurgery
* Nutrition
* Pathology
* Pharmacy

* Timelines
* Portal
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Science and technology studies

Economics|

* Economics of science
* Economics of scientific knowledge

History|

* History and philosophy of science
* History of science
* and technology
* History of technology

Philosophy|

* Anthropocene
* Antipositivism
* Empiricism
* Fuzzy logic
* Neo-Luddism
* Philosophy of science
* Philosophy of social science
* Philosophy of technology
* Positivism
* Postpositivism
* Religion and science
* Scientism
* Social constructivism
* Social epistemology
* Transhumanism

Sociology|

* Actor–network theory
* Social
* construction of technology
* shaping of technology
* Sociology of knowledge
* scientific
* Sociology of scientific ignorance
* Sociology of the history of science
* Sociotechnology
* Strong programme

Science
studies|

* Antiscience
* Bibliometrics
* Boundary-work
* Consilience
* Criticism of science
* Demarcation problem
* Double hermeneutic
* Logology
* Mapping controversies
* Metascience
* Paradigm shift
* Pseudoscience
* Psychology of science
* Science
* citizen
* communication
* education
* normal
* post-normal
* rhetoric
* wars
* Scientific
* community
* consensus
* controversy
* dissent
* enterprise
* literacy
* method
* misconduct
* priority
* skepticism
* Scientocracy
* Scientometrics
* Team science
* Traditional knowledge
* ecological
* Unity of science
* Women in science
* STEM

Technology
studies|

* Co-production
* Cyborg anthropology
* Dematerialization
* Digital anthropology
* Digital media use and mental health
* Early adopter
* Hype cycle
* Innovation
* diffusion
* disruptive
* linear model
* system
* user
* Leapfrogging
* Normalization process theory
* Reverse salient
* Skunkworks project
* Sociotechnical system
* Technical change
* Technocracy
* Technoscience
* feminist
* Technological
* change
* convergence
* determinism
* revolution
* transitions
* Technology
* and society
* criticism of
* dynamics
* theories of
* transfer
* Engineering studies
* Women in engineering

Policy|

* Academic freedom
* Digital divide
* Evidence-based policy
* Factor 10
* Funding of science
* Science policy
* history of
* science of
* Politicization of science
* Regulation of science
* Research ethics
* Right to science
* Socio-scientific issues
* Technology assessment
* Technology policy
* Transition management

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