On the emergence of philosophy of science

What I (try to) do, however, is not philosophy of science. I suppose what I do amounts to old-fashioned Oxford-style conceptual analysis, though again with a new historical emphasis. I should note that I think the word ‘analysis’ in this context is often given much too restrictive a sense (to analyze the concept F is to give necessary and sufficient conditions of the form ‘x is an F if and only if…’ – well, no). In fact I suspect that what I do amounts to the kind of thing that, according to Schliesser, philosophy of science since the time of Newton’s exegetes was deliberately conceived in order to rule out as invalid. On his story, philosophy of science emerged as the exclusive authority of empirical science was invoked by figures like Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, Musschenbroek, and Nieuwentyt against the notion that mere reflection on the meanings of concepts can reveal substantive truths about concrete reality.--Alex Douglas, responding, in part, to my post.

Alex's post (welcome to the blogosphere, Alex!) allows me to clarify something about my own position about the emergence of philosophy of science. By 'philosophy of science,' I mean a distinct, second order reflection on scientific practice and images of science (on images of science recall this).* Douglas is right to associate my story with now-obscure figures like Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, Musschenbroek, and Nieuwentyt. What these eighteenth century characters have in common is that they were willing to appeal to the authority of Newtonian natural philosophy to settle debate within philosophy/metaphysics proper. (I call such a move "Newton's Challenge!") Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande, and Musschenbroek also made some contributions to Newtonian natural philosophy, but on the whole they are worth remembering (together with Nieuwentyt) for their reflections on the nature of Newton's achievement. To be clear: none of these four characters were slavish followers of Newton; they recast Newton's position in terms that served their own philosophical ends often in polemical context (often, but not exclusively, anti-Spinozistic). But on my account, their arguments did not go unchallenged. In particular, Diderot, Hume, Buffon, Mandeville (etc.) all offer arguments and considerations that are, in part, a response to "Newton's Challenge" as such and, in some part, directly addressing the detailed arguments offered in its favor. By my lights these arguments by Diderot, Hume, Buffon, Berkeley, Mandeville also contribute to the emergence of philosophy of science as a distinct, second order enterprise. So, the authority of science was debated in the emergence of philosophy science (see here, in part). As an aside, this was, in part, a debate within what is now  known as 'empiricism.'

With this in mind, we can turn to a second quote from Douglas's post:

But what particular objection emerges [to historically informed conceptual analysis] from philosophy of science specifically? At its root lies, I think, a simple and understandable sense that science is perfectly and uniquely capable of comprehending concrete reality all on its own, without help from anything else, including conceptual analysis. I don’t think all philosophers of science have this sense as such. But I do think that something like it is common among many of them, and if Schliesser’s history is right it was one of the prompting motivations that led to the development of philosophy of science in the first place. One doesn’t, after all, do philosophy of science without thinking that science is important, and this thought leads naturally to the thought that, at least in the domain of concrete discovery, it is exclusively important.--Douglas.

It should be clear that I do not quite agree with this characterization of my account of the history. But I do believe (recall) that in the aftermath of the success of 'scientific philosophy' (Russell, Vienna Circle), much of professional philosophy of science came to rest on what I have called a 'quasi-transcendental assumption' (QTA): if anything counts as knowledge it is fallible science, especially physics (chemistry, biology, whatever), so let's now articulate how this is possible or, more formally, justified (and develop, say, norms appropriate to this). Historically, perhaps, QTA was inherited from the neo-Kantian conception of epistemology as first philosophy.Moreover, something like QTA is presupposed when philosophers (not just philosophers of science) appeal to an image of science as shorthand within some philosophical debate.

It is worth mentioning that QTA has not gone unchallenged within philosophy of science (think Feyerabend, SSK, Kuhn on some days of the week, Feminist standpoint theory, etc.) But these days folk that challenge QTA explicitly and implicitly often get silenced by being accused of skepticism, relativism, nihilism, or anti-Enlightenment-ism. So, there is still more work to be done to get QTA in view (that's for a later date). 

In conclusion, Douglas thinks "that understanding concepts can, in many cases, advance the very same kind of understanding as science advances, and often plays an indispensable role." I would like to hear more about these claims; I am open to the idea that something in this ball-park is right (although I find the "very same kind" claim dubious), so I look forward to his future blogs. I do agree that understanding concepts need not be an alternative to science. In particular, one way to understand science, at its best, is an ongoing stress-testing of its concepts by way of measurement (see Abe Stone's neglected piece). I say 'at its best' to distinguish the stress-testing of concepts from those scientific practices that have a confirmatory tendency. But about such matters more another time.

 

*There are concerns over anachronism in the vicinity 'Science' and 'scientist' in the modern sense got coined in the nineteenth century; science as a practice predates this. Moreover, there has been quite a bit of reflection on science going back to antiquity (if one allows that there was science in antiquity).

 

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[Abestone]

Note that, as you can tell from the URL Eric links to, there is also a newer version of my neglected paper: http://people.ucsc.edu/~abestone/papers/scimethod1.pdf.