Filozofia nauki a historia nauki

Artykuł analizuje relacje pomiędzy filozofią nauki i historią nauki. Rozważane są dwa podejścia do filozofii nauki, jedno reprezentowane przez formalną metodologię nauk i drugie – przez historycznie zorientowaną teorię nauki. O ile pierwsza koncepcja traktuje historię nauki jako niezbyt istotną dla filozofi i nauki, orientacja druga uważa, że pierwsza jest kluczem do drugiej. Najlepiej wyraża to znane powiedzenie Imre Lakatosa: „Filozofia nauki bez historii nauki jest pusta, historia nauki bez filozofii nauki jest ślepa”. Artykuł bliżej rozważa koncepcje Thomasa S. Kuhna i Imre Lakatosa jako sztandarowe wersje historycznej metodologii nauki. Autor argumentuje, że są to raczej historiozoficzne wizje nauki niż historie nauki.

The paper focuses on relations between philosophy of science and history of science. Two models of science are considered. The fi rst is provided by formal methodology (philosophy) of science. It assumes that (1) there exists an eff ective criterion of demarcation between science and non -science (in particular, pseudo -science); (2) science manifests itself in the same manner in all historical epochs; (3) science as a result (in particular, a system of propositions), not science as an activity, is the primary subject of philosophical investigations; (4) philosophy of science concentrates mostly on the context of justifi cation, not the context of discovery. Consequently, formal logic provides analytic devices for philosophy of science and history has a secondary importance. The second approach, the historical philosophy of science (or historicisms in the philosophy of science), denies the assumptions (1)–(4). Hence, the history of science is of the utmost importance for the philosophy of science. More specifi cally, history of science provides empirical data for the philosophy of science. As Imre Lakatos once said (it is a paraphrase of Kant) “Philosophy of science without history of science is empty, history of science without philosophy of science is blind”. According to Lakatos, a rational reconstruction of the history of science constitutes the main task of the philosophy of science. The adjective “rational” indicates here that this reconstruction must be guided by principles elaborated by philosophical refl ection. Lakatos’s own proposal in this respect is captured by his famous idea of research programs as units organizing concrete scientifi c investigations and their development. The methodology of research programs is Lakatos’s answer to Kuhn’s philosophy of science as based on the concept of the paradigm of scientifi c activity accepted by scientists in a particular period. Lakatos objected that the acceptance of paradigms is, according to Kuhn, too irrational. In fact Lakatos wanted to combine Popper’s idea of the logic of scientific discover and Kuhn’s historicism. There are several objections to historicism. Disregarding one of the standard critical observations, namely that concerning the ambiguity of the terms “research program” and “paradigm”, one can observe that the concepts of the external history of science and the internal history of science are unclear in philosophical theories of science off ered by Kuhn and Lakatos. Similar remarks apply to Paul Feyerabend’s rule “Everything goes” as admitt ing any methodology of scientific investigations. Since the representatives of historicism are almost exclusively interested in the internal history of science, they overlook the external history of science and blame it as naïve and consisting of popular stories concerning accidental circumstances related to great discoveries (Newton’s apple or killing of Archimedes). The author argues that this att itude is unjustifi ed. Clearly, any elaboration of the actual history is selective and thereby must appeal to some criteria of selection. On the other hand, too excessive use of philosophy in historical reconstruction converts history of science into historiosophy (speculative history) of science.