Philosophy of Science, Logic and Mathematics In the 20th Century: Routledge History of Philosophy: Volume IX by Stuart. G. Shanker

Author:Stuart. G. Shanker [Stuart. G. SHANKER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The philosophy of science

today

Joseph Agassi

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE HAS A REMARKABLY LOW STANDARD

Science began in Antiquity as a branch of wisdom, and philosophy ( = the love of wisdom) was distinguished from wisdom only by philosophers. Cultivators of science in its early modern times (c. 1600–1800) called themselves philosophers, and their activity was called not science but natural philosophy. What we call today the philosophy of science includes the theories of knowledge (epistemology) and of learning (methodology), as well as the study of the principles of science (metaphysics, the philosophy of nature). The first two disciplines were at the time neglected as they were considered marginal; the third, metaphysics, was deemed distinctly dangerous. Natural philosophers did not consider their work impractical; they called themselves ‘benefactors of humanity’, as they were convinced that their activities, in addition to their intrinsic merits, will bring peace and prosperity to the whole world. But they insisted that the practical aspects of science, significant as they surely are, can only appear as by-products, not as the outcome of study directed to any goal other than the search for the truth: any other goal will render research biased and so worse than nothing.

It is not that applied science evolves all by itself, as the application of knowledge for practical purposes certainly requires efforts, including research. But the research for any practical purpose need not, it was taken for granted, be a search for knowledge. To make this clear, it may be useful to contrast the classical, typically eighteenth-century view with today’s view: today we recognize within science not two but three categories; we recognize basic research in addition to the classical pure and applied research, where pure research is disinterested and applied research is the use of the fruits of pure research for practical ends; basic research is pure research directed at material which is not very interesting in its own right but which is expected to be very useful in practice. There is little doubt that today research claims prestige for itself because of its potential usefulness. That is to say, all research is claimed to be more-or-less basic.1 In the classical vein this was unthinkable, the value of science was deemed almost exclusively personal and research was deemed edifying.

Obviously, of the many thousands of citizens engaged in research proper, most are engaged in small tasks—which Thomas S.Kuhn has labelled ‘normal’. And, he stresses, normal science is practical. He probably means by this that normal science is all practical, but let us admit that it can also be basic. The practical attitude to science is very modern; it is at most the result of the industrial revolution, and so nineteenth-century at the earliest; more likely it is post-Hiroshima. Kuhn is a historian of science and so he should know the obvious fact that normal science in the eighteenth century was more for individual entertainment than for practical ends. This was not always so: anyone familiar even with the mere illustrations in the literature in the history of science in the eighteenth century will know that.

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