The geometry of knowledge: Lewis, Becker, Carnap and the formalization of philosophy in the 1920s

On an ordinary view of the relation of philosophy of science to science, science serves only as a topic for philosophical reflection, reflection that proceeds by its own methods and according to its own standards. This ordinary view suggests a way of writing a global history of philosophy of science that finds substantially the same philosophical projects being pursued across widely divergent scientific eras. While not denying that this view is of some use regarding certain themes of and particular time periods, this essay argues that much of the epistemology and philosophy of science in the early twentieth century in a variety of projects (neo-Kantianism, logical empiricism, pragmatism, phenomenology) looked to the then current context of the exact sciences, especially geometry and physics, not merely for its topics but also for its conceptual resources and technical tools. This suggests a more variable project of philosophy of science, a deeper connection between early twentieth-century philosophy of science and its contemporary science, and a more interesting and richer history of philosophy of science than is ordinarily offered.     

The silence of the norms: The missing historiography of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

History has been disparaged since the late 19th century for not conforming to norms of scientific explanation. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact a work of history upends the regnant philosophical conception of science in the second part of the 20th century. Yet despite its impact, Kuhn’s Structure has failed to motivate philosophers to ponder why works of history should be capable of exerting rational influence on an understanding of philosophy of science. But all this constitutes a great irony and a mystery. The mystery consists of the persistence of a complete lack of interest in efforts to theorize historical explanation. Fundamental questions regarding why an historical account could have any rational influence remain not merely unanswered, but unasked. The irony arises from the fact that analytic philosophy of history went into an eclipse where it remains until this day just around the time that the influence of Kuhn’s great work began to make itself felt. This paper highlights puzzles long ignored regarding the challenges a work of history managed to pose to the epistemic authority of science, and what this might imply generally for the place of philosophy of history vis-à-vis the problems of philosophy.     

The Left Vienna Circle, Part 2. The Left Vienna Circle, disciplinary history, and feminist philosophy of science

This paper analyzes the claim that the Left Vienna Circle (LVC) offers a theoretical and historical precedent for a politically engaged philosophy of science today. I describe the model for a political philosophy of science advanced by LVC historians. They offer this model as a moderate, properly philosophical approach to political philosophy of science that is rooted in the analytic tradition. This disciplinary-historical framing leads to weaknesses in LVC scholars’ conception of the history of the LVC and its contemporary relevance. In this light, I examine the claim that there are productive enrichments to be gained from the engagement of feminist philosophy of science with the LVC, finding this claim ill-formulated. The case of LVC historiography and feminist philosophy of science presents a revealing study in the uses and ethics of disciplinary history, showing how feminist and other perspectives are misconceived and marginalized by forms of disciplinary self-narrativizing.     

The National Science Foundation and philosophy of science's withdrawal from social concerns

At some point during the 1950s, mainstream American philosophy of science began increasingly to avoid questions about the role of non-cognitive values in science and, accordingly, increasingly to avoid active engagement with social, political and moral concerns. Such questions and engagement eventually ceased to be part of the mainstream. Here we show that the eventual dominance of ‘value-free’ philosophy of science can be attributed, at least in part, to the policies of the U.S. National Science Foundation's “History and Philosophy of Science” sub-program. In turn, the sub-program's policies were set by logical empiricists who espoused value-free philosophy of science; these philosophers' actions, we also point out, fit a broad pattern, one in which analytic philosophers used institutional control to marginalize rival approaches to philosophy. We go on to draw on existing knowledge of this pattern to suggest two further, similar, contributors to the withdrawal from value-laden philosophy of science, namely decisions by the editors of Philosophy of Science and by the editors of The Journal of Philosophy. Political climate was, we argue, at most an indirect contributor to the withdrawal and was neither a factor that decided whether it occurred nor one that was sufficient to bring it about. Moreover, we argue that the actions at the National Science Foundation went beyond what was required by its senior administrators and are better viewed as part of what drove, rather than as what was being driven by, the adoption of logical empiricism by the philosophy of science community.     

Collaborative explanation,explanatory roles,and scientific explaining in practice

Scientific explanation is a perennial topic in philosophy of science, but the literature has fragmented into specialized discussions in different scientific disciplines. An increasing attention to scientific practice by philosophers is (in part) responsible for this fragmentation and has put pressure on criteria of adequacy for philosophical accounts of explanation, usually demanding some form of pluralism. This commentary examines the arguments offered by Fagan and Woody with respect to explanation and understanding in scientific practice. I begin by scrutinizing Fagan's concept of collaborative explanation, highlighting its distinctive advantages and expressing concern about several of its assumptions. Then I analyze Woody's attempt to reorient discussions of scientific explanation around functional considerations, elaborating on the wider implications of this methodological recommendation. I conclude with reflections on synergies and tensions that emerge when the two papers are juxtaposed and how these draw attention to critical issues that confront ongoing philosophical analyses of scientific explanation.     

Hermeneutic strategies in Gerd Buchdahl’s Kantian philosophy of science

Gerd Buchdahl’s international reputation rests on his masterly writings on Kant. In them he showed how Kant transformed the philosophical problems of his predecessors and he minutely investigated the ways in which Kant related his critical philosophy to the contents and methods of natural science. Less well known, if only because in large part unpublished, are the writings in which Buchdahl elaborated his own views on the methods and status of the sciences. In this paper I examine the roles of hermeneutics in Buchdahl’s reconstruction of Kant’s philosophical system and in his own ‘transcendental methodological’ approach to the philosophy of science. The first section looks at Buchdahl’s views on the theory and practice of historical interpretation and at the Husserlian hermeneutic scheme of reduction and realisation that he used in his later accounts of the philosophies of science of Kant and himself. The second section concentrates on Buchdahl’s treatment of the grounds of science in Kant; and the third on the hermeneutic strategies Buchdahl employed in articulating and justifying his own views. The paper closes with reflections on the impact and importance of Buchdahl’s interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy in relation to the sciences and of his own hermeneutically based philosophy of science.     

The tragedy of the canon; or,path dependence in the history and philosophy of science

We have previously argued that historical cases must be rendered canonical before they can plausibly serve as evidence for philosophical claims, where canonicity is established through a process of negotiation among historians and philosophers of science (Bolinska and Martin, 2020). Here, we extend this proposal by exploring how that negotiation might take place in practice. The working stock of historical examples that philosophers tend to employ has long been established informally, and, as a result, somewhat haphazardly. The composition of the historical canon of philosophy of science is therefore path dependent, and cases often become stock examples for reasons tangential to their appropriateness for the purposes at hand. We show how the lack of rigor around the canonization of case studies has muddied the waters in selected philosophical debates. This, in turn, lays the groundwork for proposing ways in which they can be improved.     

The benefits of acquiring interactional expertise: Why (some) philosophers of science should engage scientific communities

Philosophers of science are increasingly arguing for and addressing the need to do work that is socially and scientifically engaged. However, we currently lack well-developed frameworks for thinking about how we should engage other expert communities and what the epistemic benefits are of doing so. In this paper, I draw on Collins and Evans' concept of ‘interactional expertise’ – the ability to speak the language of a discipline in the absence of an ability to practice – to consider the epistemic benefits that can arise when philosophers engage scientific communities. As Collins and Evans argue, becoming an interactional expert requires that one ‘hang out’ with members of the relevant expert community in order to learn crucial tacit knowledge needed to speak the language. Building on this work, I argue that acquiring interactional expertise not only leads to linguistic fluency, but it also confers several ‘socio-epistemic’ benefits such as the opportunity to cultivate trust with scientific communities. These benefits can improve philosophical work and facilitate the broader uptake of philosophers' ideas, enabling philosophers to meet a variety of epistemic goals. As a result, having at least some philosophers of science acquire interactional expertise via engagement will likely enhance the diversity of epistemic capacities for philosophy of science as a whole. For some philosophers of science, moreover, the socio-epistemic benefits identified here may be more important than the ability to speak the language of a discipline, suggesting the need for a broader analysis of interactional expertise, which this paper also advances.     

Into the ‘regions of physical and metaphysical chaos’: Maxwell’s scientific metaphysics and natural philosophy of action (agency,determinacy and necessity from theology,moral philosophy and history to mathematics,theory and experiment)

Maxwell’s writings exhibit an enduring preoccupation with the role of metaphysics in the advancement of science, especially the progress of physics. I examine the question of the distinction and the proper relation between physics and metaphysics and the way in which the question relies on key notions that bring together much of Maxwell’s natural philosophy, theoretical and experimental. Previous discussions of his attention to metaphysics have been confined to specific issues and polemics such as conceptions of matter and the problem of free will. I suggest a unifying pattern based on a generalized philosophical perspective and varying expressions, although never a systematic or articulated philosophical doctrine, but at least a theme of action and active powers, natural and human, intellectual and material, with sources and grounds in theology, moral philosophy and historical argument. While science was developing in the direction of professional specialization and alongside the rise of materialism, Maxwell held on to conservative intellectual outlook, but one that included a rich scientific life and held science as part of a rich intellectual, cultural and material life. His philosophical outlook integrated his science with and captured the new Victorian culture of construction and work, political, economic, artistic and engineering.     

Pluralism and anarchism in quantum physics: Paul Feyerabend's writings on quantum physics in relation to his general philosophy of science

This paper aims to show that the development of Feyerabend's philosophical ideas in the 1950s and 1960s largely took place in the context of debates on quantum mechanics.In particular, he developed his influential arguments for pluralism in science in discussions with the quantum physicist David Bohm, who had developed an alternative approach to quantum physics which (in Feyerabend's perception) was met with a dogmatic dismissal by some of the leading quantum physicists. I argue that Feyerabend's arguments for theoretical pluralism and for challenging established theories were connected to his objections to the dogmatism and conservatism he observed in quantum physics.However, as Feyerabend gained insight into the physical details and historical complexities which led to the development of quantum mechanics, he gradually became more modest in his criticisms. His writings on quantum mechanics especially engaged with Niels Bohr; initially, he was critical of Bohr's work in quantum mechanics, but in the late 1960s, he completely withdrew his criticism and even praised Bohr as a model scientist. He became convinced that however puzzling quantum mechanics seemed, it was methodologically unobjectionable – and this was crucial for his move towards ‘anarchism’ in philosophy of science.     

Objectivity, abstraction, and the individual: the influence of Søren Kierkegaard on Paul Feyerabend

This paper explores the influence of Søren Kierkegaard upon Paul Feyerabend by examining their common criticisms of totalising accounts of human nature. Both complained that philosophical and scientific theories of human nature which were methodologically committed to objectivity and abstraction failed to capture the richness of human experience. Kierkegaard and Feyerabend argued that philosophy and the science were threatening to become obstacles to human development by imposing abstract theories of human nature and reality which denied the complexities of both. In both cases, this took the form of asserting an ‘existential’ criterion for the assessment of philosophical and scientific theories. Kierkegaard also made remarks upon the inappropriateness of applying natural scientific methods to human beings which Feyerabend later expanded and developed in his criticisms of the inability of the ‘scientific worldview’ to accommodate the values necessary to a flourishing human life. I conclude by noting some differences between Kierkegaard and Feyerabend’s positions and by affirming the value of existential criticisms of scientific knowledge.     

History and scientific practice in the construction of an adequate philosophy of science: revisiting a Whewell/Mill debate

William Whewell raised a series of objections concerning John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science which suggested that Mill’s views were not properly informed by the history of science or by adequate reflection on scientific practices. The aim of this paper is to revisit and evaluate this incisive Whewellian criticism of Mill’s views by assessing Mill’s account of Michael Faraday’s discovery of electrical induction. The historical evidence demonstrates that Mill’s reconstruction is an inadequate reconstruction of this historical episode and the scientific practices Faraday employed. But a study of Faraday’s research also raises some questions about Whewell’s characterization of this discovery. Thus, this example provides an opportunity to reconsider the debate between Whewell and Mill concerning the role of the sciences in the development of an adequate philosophy of scientific methodology.     

How not to integrate the history and philosophy of science: a reply to Chalmers

Alan Chalmers uses Robert Boyle’s mechanical philosophy as an example of the irrelevance of ‘philosophy’ to ‘science’ and criticizes my 2006 book Atoms and alchemy for overemphasizing Boyle’s successes. The present paper responds as follows: first, it argues that Chalmers employs an overly simplistic methodology insensitive to the distinction between historical and philosophical claims; second, it shows that the central theses of Atoms and alchemy are untouched by Chalmers’s criticisms; and third, it uses Boyle’s analysis of subordinate causes and his debate with Henry More in the 1670s to demonstrate the inadequacy of Chalmers’s construal of the mechanical philosophy.     

Hobbes on natural philosophy as “True Physics” and mixed mathematics

In this paper, I offer an alternative account of the relationship of Hobbesian geometry to natural philosophy by arguing that mixed mathematics provided Hobbes with a model for thinking about it. In mixed mathematics, one may borrow causal principles from one science and use them in another science without there being a deductive relationship between those two sciences. Natural philosophy for Hobbes is mixed because an explanation may combine observations from experience (the ‘that’) with causal principles from geometry (the ‘why’). My argument shows that Hobbesian natural philosophy relies upon suppositions that bodies plausibly behave according to these borrowed causal principles from geometry, acknowledging that bodies in the world may not actually behave this way. First, I consider Hobbes's relation to Aristotelian mixed mathematics and to Isaac Barrow's broadening of mixed mathematics in Mathematical Lectures (1683). I show that for Hobbes maker's knowledge from geometry provides the ‘why’ in mixed-mathematical explanations. Next, I examine two explanations from De corpore Part IV: (1) the explanation of sense in De corpore 25.1-2; and (2) the explanation of the swelling of parts of the body when they become warm in De corpore 27.3. In both explanations, I show Hobbes borrowing and citing geometrical principles and mixing these principles with appeals to experience.     

Philosophy in the trenches: from naturalized to experimental philosophy (of science)

Recent years have seen the development of an approach both to general philosophy and philosophy of science often referred to as ‘experimental philosophy’ or just ‘X-Phi’. Philosophers often make or presuppose empirical claims about how people would react to hypothetical cases, but their evidence for claims about what ‘we’ would say is usually very limited indeed. Philosophers of science have largely relied on their more or less intimate knowledge of their field of study to draw hypothetical conclusions about the state of scientific concepts and the nature of conceptual change in science. What they are lacking is some more objective quantitative data supporting their hypotheses. A growing number of philosophers (of science), along with a few psychologists and anthropologists, have tried to remedy this situation by designing experiments aimed at systematically exploring people’s reactions to philosophically important thought experiments or scientists’ use of their scientific concepts. Many of the results have been surprising and some of the conclusions drawn from them have been more than a bit provocative. This symposium attempts to provide a window into this new field of philosophical inquiry and to show how experimental philosophy provides crucial tools for the philosopher and encourages two-way interactions between scientists and philosophers.     

Bird, Kuhn, and positivism

I challenge Alexander Bird’s contention that the divergence between Kuhn’s views and recent philosophy of science is a matter of Kuhn having taken a wrong turn. Bird is right to remind us of Kuhn’s naturalistic tendencies, but these are not clearly an asset, rather than a liability. Kuhn was right to steer clear of extreme referential conceptions of meaning, since these court an unacceptable semantic scepticism. Although he eschewed the concepts of truth and knowledge as philosophers of science have tended to understand them, this doesn’t mean that, as Bird claims, Kuhn was a sceptic about scientific knowledge. Bird’s claim that recent philosophical naturalism represents a rejection of positivism far more thorough than Kuhn’s is problematic since, from a different perspective, this kind of naturalism can be seen to have inherited some equally important positivistic themes. Finally, it’s not clear that Kuhn should have endorsed a computational approach to the philosophy of science, such as connectionism, since such approaches may be more behaviouristic, and thus unacceptably positivistic, than the original cognitive revolution promised.     

Ernst Cassirer's transcendental account of mathematical reasoning

Cassirer's philosophical agenda revolved around what appears to be a paradoxical goal, that is, to reconcile the Kantian explanation of the possibility of knowledge with the conceptual changes of nineteenth and early twentieth-century science. This paper offers a new discussion of one way in which this paradox manifests itself in Cassirer's philosophy of mathematics. Cassirer articulated a unitary perspective on mathematics as an investigation of structures independently of the nature of individual objects making up those structures. However, this posed the problem of how to account for the applicability of abstract mathematical concepts to empirical reality. My suggestion is that Cassirer was able to address this problem by giving a transcendental account of mathematical reasoning, according to which the very formation of mathematical concepts provides an explanation of the extensibility of mathematical knowledge. In order to spell out what this argument entails, the first part of the paper considers how Cassirer positioned himself within the Marburg neo-Kantian debate over intellectual and sensible conditions of knowledge in 1902–1910. The second part compares what Cassirer says about mathematics in 1910 with some relevant examples of how structural procedures developed in nineteenth-century mathematics.     

French historical epistemology: Discourse,concepts, and the norms of rationality

In recent years, analytic philosophers have begun to recognize the value of the French school of historical epistemology (as embodied by figures such as Jean Cavaillès, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Michel Foucault) for contemporary debates in the history and philosophy of science. This tradition, which some characterize as a ‘French’ approach to the philosophy of science, however, remains largely un-read by mainstream philosophers of science. This article offers an interpretation of this tradition, highlighting what the author takes to be its two central features: (i) its claim that scientific discourse is the object of epistemology and (ii) its claim that scientific concepts are the building blocks of scientific discourse.     

Existential risk,creativity & well-adapted science

Existential risks, particularly those arising from emerging technologies, are a complex, obstinate challenge for scientific study. This should motivate studying how the relevant scientific communities might be made more amenable to studying such risks. I offer an account of scientific creativity suitable for thinking about scientific communities, and provide reasons for thinking contemporary science doesn't incentivise creativity in this specified sense. I'll argue that a successful science of existential risk will be creative in my sense. So, if we want to make progress on those questions we should consider how to shift scientific incentives to encourage creativity. The analysis also has lessons for philosophical approaches to understanding the social structure of science. I introduce the notion of a ‘well-adapted’ science: one in which the incentive structure is tailored to the epistemic situation at hand.     

What’s right about Carnap, Neurath and the Left Vienna Circle thesis: a refutation

This paper rejects as unfounded a recent criticism of research on the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle and the claim that it sported a political philosophy of science. The demand for ‘specific, local periodized claims’ is turned against the critic. It is shown (i) that certain criticisms of Red Vienna’s leading party cannot be transferred to the members of the Circle involved in popular education, nor can criticism of Carnap’s Aufbau be transferred to Neurath’s unified science project; (ii) that neither with regard to Carnap nor to Neurath does the criticism raise points that either engage with the thesis proposed or stand up to closer scrutiny; (iii) that the main thesis attacked is just what I had warned the claim that the Vienna Circle had a political philosophy of science should not be understood as. The question whether theirs is ‘political enough’ today can and should be discussed without distortion of the historical record.