THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: AN INTRODUCTION

Philosophy of science emerged as a recognizable sub-discipline within philosophy only in the twentieth century. The possibility of such a sub-discipline is a result of the post-Enlightenment disciplinary and institutional separation of philosophy from the sciences. Before that separation, philosophical reflection formed part of scientific research—as, indeed, it must—and philosophy was usually guided by a sound knowledge of science, a practice that gradually lost currency after the separation. In the nineteenth century, philosophical reflection on science resulted in a tradition of natural philosophy, particularly in Britain (with the work of Mill, Pearson, Whewell, and others), but also in continental Europe, especially in Austria (with Bolzano, Mach, and others). What is called philosophy of science today has its roots in both the British and the Austrian traditions, although with many other influences, as several entries in this Encyclopedia record (see, for instance, Duhem Thesis; Poincaré, Henri). This Encyclopedia is intended to cover contemporary philosophy of science. It is restricted to conceptual developments since the turn of the twentieth century. Its treatment of major figures in the field is restricted to philosophers (excluding scientists, no matter what the extent of their philosophical influence has been) and, with very few exceptions (notably Chomsky, Noam; Putnam, Hilary; and Searle, John), to those whose work is distant enough to allow ‘‘historical’’ appraisal. Conceptual issues in the general philosophy of science (including its epistemology and metaphysics) as well as in the special sciences are included; those in mathematics have been left for a different work. This Introduction will provide a guided tour of these conceptual issues; individual figures will only be mentioned in passing. Historically, the themes treated in the Encyclopedia are those that have emerged starting with the period of the Vienna Circle (see Vienna Circle), including the figures and developments that influenced it (see Bridgman, Percy Williams; Duhem Thesis; Mach, Ernest; Poincaré, Jules Henri). The work of the members of the Vienna Circle provide a link between the older natural philosophy, especially in its Austrian version, and the later philosophy of science, which borrowed heavily from the concepts and techniques of the mathematical logic that was being created in the first three decades of the last century (see Hilbert, David; Ramsey, Frank Plumpton; Russell, Bertrand; see also Ayer [1959] and Sarkar [1996a]). The new set of doctrines—or, more accurately, methods—came to be called ‘‘logicalpositivism’’ and, later, ‘‘logical empiricism’’ (see Logical Empiricism; see also Sarkar [1996b]).By the1930s these viewshad spreadbeyond the confines of Vienna and had attracted allegiance from many other similarly-minded philosophers (see Ayer, A. J.; Quine, Willard Van; Reichenbach, Hans). Two attitudes were widely shared within this group: a belief that good philosophy must be conversant with the newest developments within the sciences (see Rational Reconstruction), and a rejection of traditional metaphysics imbued with discussions with no empirical significance (see Cognitive Significance; Verifiability). Some members of the Vienna Circle also took the so-called linguistic turn (see Carnap, Rudolf) and viewed scientific theories as systems formalized in artificial languages (Sarkar 1996c). Arguably, at least, this work lost the prized contact with the practice of science, and this development contributed to the eventual rejection of logical empiricism bymost philosophers of science in the late twentieth century. However, a number of the original logical empiricists, along with many others, rejected the linguistic turn, or at least did not fully endorse it (see Neurath, Otto; Popper, Karl Raimund; Reichenbach, Hans). The tensions between the two views were never fully articulated during this period, let alone resolved, because the Vienna Circle as an