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History and philosophy of science
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<h2 id="history">History</h2> <p>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 <a href="/facts/Thomas_Kuhn/gIHlTbdr">Thomas Kuhn</a>. His first permanent appointment, at the <a href="/facts/University_of_California,_Berkeley/MXVEjklr">University of California, Berkeley</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> 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".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> This attitude is also reflected in his historicist approach, as outlined in Kuhn's seminal <a href="/facts/Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions/vTzWCJpX">Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a> (1962, 2nd ed. 1970), wherein philosophical questions about scientific theories and, especially, theory change are understood in historical terms, employing concepts such as <a href="/facts/Paradigm_shift/Bj24vT0p">paradigm shift</a>. </p><p>However, Kuhn was also critical of attempts fully to unify the <i>methods</i> 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."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> More recent work questions whether these methodological and conceptual divisions are in fact barriers to a unified discipline.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul> <li>Philosophy portal</li><li>Science portal</li></ul> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Index_of_philosophy_of_science_articles/BcBa7VGd">Index of philosophy of science articles</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Historical_epistemology/s0KPGe8v">Historical epistemology</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Historiography_of_science/QBakCjM6">Historiography of science</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/History_of_science_and_technology/WvmITQvS">History of science and technology</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Sociology_of_the_history_of_science/yhdxhqG9">Sociology of the history of science</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Galison, Peter (March 2008). "Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science". Isis. 99 (1): 111–124. doi:10.1086/587536. S2CID 142859424. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Weingart, Scott B. (February 2015). "Finding the History and Philosophy of Science". Erkenntnis. 80 (1): 201–213. doi:10.1007/s10670-014-9621-1. S2CID 143674932. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>"A Discussion with Thomas S. Kuhn" in The Road Since Structure, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 302. <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>"A Discussion with Thomas S. Kuhn," p. 302. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>"The Relations Between the History and the Philosophy of Science," pp. 3–20 in The Essential Tension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Lydia Patton, Philosophy, Science, and History, pp. 27–33, New York: Routledge 2014, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415898317/. <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415898317/" target="_blank">http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415898317/</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>