Integrating History And Philosophy Of Science

Though the publication of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions seemed to herald the advent of a unified study of the history and philosophy of science, it is a hard fact that history of science and philosophy of science have increasingly grown apart. Recently, however, there has been a series of workshops on both sides of the Atlantic (called 'HPS') intended to bring historians and philosophers of science together to discuss new integrative approaches.

This is therefore an especially appropriate time to explore the problems with and prospects for integrating history and philosophy of science. The original essays in this volume, all from specialists in the history of science or philosophy of science, offer such an exploration from a wide variety of perspectives.

The volume combines general reflections on the current state of history and philosophy of science with studies of the relation between the two disciplines in specific historical and scientific cases. Review: From the reviews: The present review will focus on those contributions that confront important methodological issues in HPS in the vicinity of Giere's challenge most directly. ... the present volume does contain attempts to address concerns about the HPS method that are often aired ... .

A number of contributions take a ... personal tone, thereby giving the reader an interesting insight into the mindsets of HPS practitioners which one would not find in standard scholarly publications. (Samuel Schindler, Metascience, October, 2012)