Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge?

Historians of science have frequently sought to exclude modern scientific knowledge from their narratives. Part I of this paper, published in the previous issue, cautioned against seeing more than a literary preference at work here. In particular, it was argued—contra advocates of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK)—that a commitment to epistemological relativism should not be seen as having straightforward historiographical consequences. Part II considers further SSK-inspired attempts to entangle the currently fashionable historiography with particular positions in the philosophy of science. None, I argue, is promising. David Bloor’s proposed alliance with scientific realism relies upon a mistaken view of contrastive explanation; Andrew Pickering’s appeal to instrumentalism is persuasive for particle physics but much less so for science as a whole; and Bruno Latour’s home-grown metaphysics is so bizarre that its compatibility with SSK is, if anything, a further blow to the latter’s plausibility.     

I am knowledge. Get me out of here! On localism and the universality of science

It has become increasingly common in historiography of science to understand science and its products as inherently local. However, this orientation is faced with three problems. First, how can one explain the seeming universality of contemporary science? Second, if science is so reflective of its local conditions of production, how can it travel so effortlessly to other localities and even globally? And third, how can scientific knowledge attain validity outside its context of origin? I will argue that the notion of standardization and theories of delocalization manage to explain the ‘globality’ of science, but that localism denies ‘universality’ if it is understood non-spatially. Further, localism limits the validity of scientific knowledge unacceptably inside the laboratory walls or other boundaries of knowledge creation. This is not consistent with scientific practice. I will consider on what grounds extra-local knowledge inferences that transcend the boundaries of locality could be seen as justified.     

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.     

Scientific pluralism and the Chemical Revolution

In a number of papers and in his recent book, Is Water H₂O? Evidence, Realism, Pluralism (2012), Hasok Chang has argued that the correct interpretation of the Chemical Revolution provides a strong case for the view that progress in science is served by maintaining several incommensurable “systems of practice” in the same discipline, and concerning the same region of nature. This paper is a critical discussion of Chang's reading of the Chemical Revolution. It seeks to establish, first, that Chang's assessment of Lavoisier's and Priestley's work and character follows the phlogistonists' “actors' sociology”; second, that Chang simplifies late-eighteenth-century chemical debates by reducing them to an alleged conflict between two systems of practice; third, that Chang's evidence for a slow transition from phlogistonist theory to oxygen theory is not strong; and fourth, that he is wrong to assume that chemists at the time did not have overwhelming good reasons to favour Lavoisier's over the phlogistonists' views.     

Visual legitimisation of astronomy in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries: Atlas, Hercules and Tycho’s nose

Images of the virtuous hero Hercules and the crowned King Atlas offered considerable potential for legitimising the new astronomy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The accomplishments of Hercules, a seeker after virtue, with his exceptional learning, his role as disseminator of knowledge, his significance as an example of ideal manhood and, in addition to all, his achievement of immortality, invited comparison with the endeavours of astronomers. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Hercules and Atlas appear as the spiritual authorities of the discipline, and each was called into use to symbolise both the old and the new astronomy. Both figures embodied qualities that were decisive in struggles for patronage: they were politicised, especially Hercules, and used to legitimise claims to power.     

Science, truth and history, Part I. Historiography, relativism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Recently, many historians of science have chosen to present their historical narratives from the ‘actors’-eye view’. Scientific knowledge not available within the actors’ culture is not permitted to do explanatory work. Proponents of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) purport to ground this historiography on epistemological relativism. I argue that they are making an unnecessary mistake: unnecessary because the historiographical genre in question can be defended on aesthetic and didactic grounds; and a mistake because the argument from relativism is in any case incoherent.The argument of the present article is self-contained, but steers clear of metaphysical debates in the philosophy of science. To allay fears of hidden assumptions, the sequel, to be published in the following issue, will consider SSK’s prospects of succour from scientific realism, instrumentalism, and a metaphysical system of Bruno Latour’s own devising.     

日本学术振兴会(JSPS)人才培养机制及其学科发展的平衡性

简要介绍了日本学术振兴会（JSPS）在国家科技政策中的重要作用.介绍了JSPS特别研究人员、海外研究人员和JSPS奖三种人才培养机制的人才的选拔方法及其学科分布特点.并基于经费投入比与论文产出比分析了基础研究中的学科发展平衡问题.日本已经认识到了学科发展的不平衡性,并采取措施促进学科的平衡发展.     

中国农业生态安全及相关研究进展

我国正处于经济快速发展时期，经济发展所带来的环境与生态问题十分严重；同时我国又是人口大国，农业生产始终是党和政府、社会各界以及国际社会关注的焦点问题，农业生态安全、粮食安全等是影响国家安全的重要方面。本文试对生态安全以及农业生态安全的概念、特点、评价与预警，粮食安全，农业景观结构调整与发展生态安全型农业，土地资源持续利用，农业生物多样性与转基因生物等的研究现状及进展做一初步分析。     

A tale of three theories: Feyerabend and Popper on progress and the aim of science

In this paper, three theories of progress and the aim of science are discussed: (i) the theory of progress as increasing explanatory power, advocated by Popper in The logic of scientific discovery (1935/1959); (ii) the theory of progress as approximation to the truth, introduced by Popper in Conjectures and refutations (1963); (iii) the theory of progress as a steady increase of competing alternatives, which Feyerabend put forward in the essay “Reply to criticism. Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam” (1965) and defended as late as the last edition of Against method (1993). It is argued that, contrary to what Feyerabend scholars have predominantly assumed, Feyerabend's changing attitude towards falsificationism—which he often advocated at the beginning of his career, and vociferously attacked in the 1970s and 1980s—must be explained by taking into account not only Feyerabend's very peculiar view of the aim of science, but also Popper's changing account of progress.     

国际科技人才竞争中中国所面临的挑战

国际科技人才竞争不仅是不同国家之间科技人才的得失问题,而且是科技人才培养与使用制度之间的竞争。本文拟基于人才统计数据描述中国在国际科技人才竞争中的处境和问题,并就今后中国如何参与国际人才竞争提出建议。     

‘And Eden from the Chaos rose’: utopian order and rebellion in the Oxford Physick Garden

Abel Evans's poem Vertumnus (1713) celebrates Jacob Bobart the Younger, second keeper of the Oxford Physick Garden (now the Oxford University Botanic Garden), as a model monarch to his botanical subjects. This paper takes Vertumnus as a point of departure from which to explore the early history of the Physick Garden (founded 1621), situating botanical collections and collecting spaces within utopian visions and projects as well as debates about order more widely in the turbulent seventeenth-century. Three perspectives on the Physick Garden as an ordered collection are explored: the architecture of the quadripartite Garden, with particular attention to the iconography of the Danby Gate; the particular challenges involved in managing living collections, whose survival depends on the spatial order regulating the microclimates in which they grow; and the taxonomic ordering associated with the hortus siccus collections. A final section on the ideal ‘Botanick throne’ focuses on the metaphor of the state as a garden in the period, as human and botanical subjects resist being order and can rebel, but also respond to right rule and wise cultivation. However, the political metaphor is Evans’s; there is little to suggest that Bobart himself was driven by utopian, theological and political visions.     

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.     

Reactionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection

As it is standardly conceived, Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is a form of ampliative inference in which one infers a hypothesis because it provides a better potential explanation of one's evidence than any other available, competing explanatory hypothesis. Bas van Fraassen famously objected to IBE thus formulated that we may have no reason to think that any of the available, competing explanatory hypotheses are true. While revisionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection concede that IBE needs to be reformulated in light of this problem, reactionary responses argue that the Bad Lot Objection is fallacious, incoherent, or misguided. This paper shows that the most influential reactionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection do nothing to undermine the original objection. This strongly suggests that proponents of IBE should focus their efforts on revisionary responses, i.e. on finding a more sophisticated characterization of IBE for which the Bad Lot Objection loses its bite.     

Kuhn, the correspondence theory of truth and coherentist epistemology

Kuhn argued against both the correspondence theory of truth and convergent realism. Although he likely misunderstood the nature of the correspondence theory, which it seems he wrongly believed to be an epistemic theory, Kuhn had an important epistemic point to make. He maintained that any assessment of correspondence between beliefs and reality is not possible, and therefore, the acceptance of beliefs and the presumption of their truthfulness has to be decided on the basis of other criteria. I will show that via Kuhn’s suggested epistemic values, specifically via problem-solving, his philosophy can be incorporated into a coherentist epistemology. Further, coherentism is, in principle, compatible with convergent realism. However, an argument for increasing likeness to truth requires appropriate historical continuity. Kuhn maintained that the history of science is full of discontinuity, and therefore, the historical condition of convergent realism is not satisfied.     

The conduction of the cardiac impulse 1951–1986

Summary The study of the propagation of the cardiac impulse during the last 35 years is reviewed with special attention to the contributions of Silvio Weidmann and his colleagues. Special emphasis is placed on the need to prove that the cardiac impulse is transmitted electrically, even when it is conducted under very abnormal conditions.     

长江上游生态安全的关键科学问题

长江上游生态安全在国家生态安全和国民经济社会中具有十分重要的和不可替代的作用和地位,但脆弱的生态环境与严重的水土流失、长期的植被破坏与生态系统功能持续下降、生物多样性丧失严重、水体污染加剧、频繁的自然灾害以及全球变化等正在威胁着该区的生态安全。因此,生态与增产增收双赢共建、水环境综合治理、生物多样性保育、生态补偿机制、全球变化减缓与适应及跨省(市)的大跨度多学科交叉整合研究被认为是构建长江上游生态安全屏障的最为关键的科学问题。     

日本学术振兴会(JSPS)科学基金资助机制与战略分析

简要概述了日本的科学基金情况,重点分析了日本学术振兴会（JSPS）及其管理的科学基金。日本学术振兴会（JSPS）相当于日本的国家科学基金会,其负责管理的科学研究费补助金是日本政府出资的科学研究基金中资助金额最大、资助范围最广、资助项目数量最多的竞争性科学基金。其对基础研究的资助政策、方向遴选、评审程序、经费分配、管理机制等对其它国家的基础研究政府资助机构具有借鉴和示范意义。介绍了科学研究费补助金资助的研究类型和申请程序,分析了近10年科学研究费补助金的预算及年增长率、近12年科学研究费补助金的项目资助率情况、近5年科学研究费补助金的领域分配与资助情况、2005年科学研究费补助金资助情况等。对科学研究费补助金的基金项目资助战略予以全面分析,对我国相关部门的管理工作有重要参考价值和借鉴意义。     

The re-emergence of hyphenated history-and-philosophy-of-science and the testing of theories of scientific change

A basic premise of hyphenated history-and-philosophy-of-science is that theories of scientific change have to be based on empirical evidence derived from carefully constructed historical case studies. This paper analyses one such systematic attempt to test philosophical claims, describing its historical context, rationale, execution, and limited impact.     

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.