Positivist or post-positivist philosophy of science? The left Vienna Circle and Thomas Kuhn

IF 1.4 2区哲学 Q1 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2024-09-05 DOI:10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.08.003

Joseph Bentley

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Abstract

The debate between the revisionist and received views of the relationship between Thomas Kuhn and logical empiricism has until now focused on the relationship between Kuhn and Rudolf Carnap. Here, I consider the relationship between Kuhn and two other members of the Vienna Circle's left-wing; Otto Neurath and Philipp Frank. It is argued that the attribution of the historical turn in philosophy of science to Kuhn obscures the historical awareness displayed in important works by members of the Vienna Circle, and thereby distorts its legacy. Both Frank and Neurath recognised the role for history in theorizing about science, and drawing upon these insights lead them to considerations of scientific theory-choice, rational disagreement, and the role of extra-scientific values in science, that anticipate those later made famous by Kuhn. It is also argued that the Left-Vienna Circle's programme for Unified Science, the replacement of traditional philosophy with a bipartite metatheory of science, provides a clearer and potentially more radical role for the history of science within the philosophy of science than Kuhn's. To reach this conclusion, it is demonstrated that some members of the Vienna Circle maintained a far less robust distinction between contexts of discovery and justification than has typically been attributed to them.

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实证主义还是后实证主义科学哲学？左翼维也纳圈和托马斯-库恩。

迄今为止，关于托马斯-库恩与逻辑经验主义之间关系的修正主义观点与公认观点之间的争论主要集中在库恩与鲁道夫-卡尔纳普之间的关系上。在此，我将探讨库恩与维也纳圈左翼的另外两位成员奥托-诺伊拉斯（Otto Neurath）和菲利普-弗兰克（Philipp Frank）之间的关系。本文认为，将科学哲学的历史转向归功于库恩，掩盖了维也纳圈成员在其重要著作中所表现出的历史意识，从而歪曲了其遗产。弗兰克和诺伊拉斯都认识到了历史在科学理论研究中的作用，并利用这些洞察力对科学理论选择、理性分歧和科学外价值在科学中的作用进行了思考，这些都是库恩后来著名的思考。本文还认为，"左翼-维也纳圈 "的 "统一科学 "计划，即用双元科学元理论取代传统哲学，为科学史在科学哲学中提供了比库恩的计划更清晰、更激进的角色。为了得出这一结论，我们需要证明维也纳圈的一些成员在发现与论证之间所坚持的区别远没有人们通常认为的那么有力。

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来源期刊

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 管理科学-科学史与科学哲学

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

10.00%

发文量

166

审稿时长

6.6 weeks

期刊介绍： Studies in History and Philosophy of Science is devoted to the integrated study of the history, philosophy and sociology of the sciences. The editors encourage contributions both in the long-established areas of the history of the sciences and the philosophy of the sciences and in the topical areas of historiography of the sciences, the sciences in relation to gender, culture and society and the sciences in relation to arts. The Journal is international in scope and content and publishes papers from a wide range of countries and cultural traditions.