Kinds and (in)commensurability

Jed Z. Buchwald

pp. 49-63

in: Kostas Gavroglu, Jean Christianidis, Efthymios Nicolaidis (eds), Trends in the historiography of science, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

For several decades many historians of science have not felt comfortable with philosophers of science, because contemporary philosophy has not often seemed to provide much that would be useful in historical practice. History wants pragmatic value from philosophy. Philosophy has until recently been unable to provide much of it. "Until recently" seems to imply that philosophy of science is or is about to become useful. To the extent that normative concerns persist, philosophy remains without much importance to historians.³ It must instead try to penetrate what characterizes science in a way that captures something historically essential about it, something that can for that reason be put to practical use by historians in their work. I believe that something like this may soon come into being; it is, moreover, something that in a vastly less formal way many historians have long used.