Integrated HPS? Formal versus historical approaches to philosophy of science

Historical Development of Method in Science and Philosophy

  The development and growth of science is based on method. Aristotle treated this issue seriously and formulated logic. Muslim thinkers accepted the comprehensibility of his idea and during some centuries developed it and exported to the west. During the last three centuries of the Middle Ages the issue of method was followed up seriously and induction enjoyed more importance. The scientific ...

Formal Methods In Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of science in the tradition of logical empiricism was characterised by an almost exclusive reliance on formal methods. The historicist tum in philosophy of science in the 1960s initiated a mostly critical attitude towards such methods. After sketching this development in section I, I will argue that the availability of new formal methods and an increased sensitivity for the uses and ...

Formal Methods in the Philosophy of Science

The Historical Turn in the Philosophy of Science

The history of science has a long history. Aristotle’s scientific works are prefaced by historical account of those sciences, and this model persisted through medieval times until and including the rise of modern science in the era of the scientific revolution. Joseph Priestley, for example, entitled two of his books of pioneering research The History and Present State of Electricity and The Hi...

Formal and Empirical Methods in Philosophy of Science

This essay addresses the methodology of philosophy of science and illustrates how formal and empirical methods can be fruitfully combined. Special emphasis is given to the application of experimental methods to confirmation theory and to recent work on the conjunction fallacy, a key topic in the rationality debate arising from research in cognitive psychology. Several other issue can be studied...