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Toward a Historical Meta-Method for Assessing Normative Methodologies: Rationability, Serendipity, and the Robinson Crusoe Fallacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Stephen J. Wykstra
Stephen J. Wykstra*
Affiliation:
University of Tulsa
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Extract

During the past two decades, much philosophy of science has been focused on issues about the norms and methods by which scientific theories are rationally appraised; and increasingly, philosophers have turned to history of science as a touchstone for assessing normative methodologies purporting to elucidate scientific rationality. But even among such historical methodologists, there is much disagreement and unclarity about how historical study of science can arbitrate between rival methodological theories; and until progress is made at this meta-methodological level, the very legitimacy of this role for history will remain controversial. (Keynotes in the controversy are sounded in Kuhn (1970b , pp. 235—41; Lakatos (1971); Giere (1973); McMullin (1976); Burian (1977); and Laudan (1977, pp. 158-63).) This paper begins by arguing that the meta-method implicit in much historical methodology is different from the explicit meta-methodology most often touted.

Type
Part VIII. History and the Metaphilosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 210 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I wish to thank Larry Laudan and Philip Quinn for their comnents on the dissertation chapter from which this paper is abstracted.

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