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Meta-Philosophy of Science
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Meta-Philosophy of Science

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2017) | Viewed by 16200

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Robert Rynasiewicz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Philosophy, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
Interests: logic; philosophy of science; history and philosophy of physics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

How should we conceive of science as an historical entity over time? Is it typically a cumulative, progressive process, as various forms of scientific realism might suggest? Does it display cyclic developmental patterns with radical discontinuities, as Kuhn famously argued? Is it just one thing after another subject to historical contingency and perhaps methodological anarchy, as Feyerabend appears to have advocated? What categories are proper and adequate to describe its development? Or is the very idea of theoretical history of science misguided to begin with?

We invite papers that address these questions and related issues, including but not limited to the following. Is theory change continuous or discontinuous, or does it depend on the level of resolution? Are there micro-patterns and macro-patterns? Should particular phases in the history of science traditionally regarded as paradigmatic or revolutionary be reevaluated and reclassified? Can resources from evolutionary biology be tapped to explain scientific development or change? Are theories, hypotheses and concepts proliferated and then winnowed by a form of natural selection? If so, should we expect to find those resources in population genetics, or in the approach combining evolution and development known as evodevo, or in both? We also encourage submissions illuminating the emergence of historical views concerning the theory of science in the historical sense going back at least through Whewell, to Kant and other Enlightenment thinkers.

Prof. Dr. Robert Rynasiewicz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • comparative methodologies
  • theoretical history of science
  • scientific progress
  • Kuhn
  • paradigms
  • normal science
  • anomalies
  • scientific revolutions
  • Lakatos
  • research programs
  • Feyerabend
  • methodological anarchy
  • theory change
  • continuity
  • evolution

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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519 KiB  
Article
Evolutionary Philosophy of Science: A New Image of Science and Stance towards General Philosophy of Science
by James A. Marcum
Philosophies 2017, 2(4), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies2040025 - 14 Nov 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4395
Abstract
An important question facing contemporary philosophy of science is whether the natural sciences in terms of their historical records exhibit distinguishing developmental patterns or structures. At least two philosophical stances are possible in answering this question. The first pertains to the plurality of [...] Read more.
An important question facing contemporary philosophy of science is whether the natural sciences in terms of their historical records exhibit distinguishing developmental patterns or structures. At least two philosophical stances are possible in answering this question. The first pertains to the plurality of the individual sciences. From this stance, the various sciences are analyzed individually and compared with one another in order to derive potential commonalities, if any, among them. The second stance involves a general philosophy of science in which a thorough theory of the natural sciences is developed. The latter stance strives to account for more than possible commonalities among the sciences but also to provide a broad-spectrum philosophical framework to account for, or to explicate, the nature of science itself and its progress. In this paper, the second stance is taken in which an evolutionary philosophy of science is proposed. To that end, Thomas Kuhn’s evolutionary philosophy of science is initially discussed and critiqued. An evolutionary philosophy of science is then proposed based on a revision of Kuhn’s evolutionary philosophy of science in terms of George Gaylord Simpson’s various tempos and modes for biological evolution. Next, two historical case studies from the biological sciences are reconstructed to illustrate the robustness of the proposed evolutionary philosophy of science for explicating the progress of the natural sciences. A concluding section discusses the proposed evolutionary philosophy of science with respect to providing a broad-spectrum framework or general philosophy of science for understanding the nature and progress of the natural sciences. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meta-Philosophy of Science)
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229 KiB  
Article
How Can a Taxonomy of Stances Help Clarify Classical Debates on Scientific Change?
by Hakob Barseghyan and Jamie Shaw
Philosophies 2017, 2(4), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies2040024 - 8 Nov 2017
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4203
Abstract
In this paper, we demonstrate how a systematic taxonomy of stances can help elucidate two classic debates of the historical turn—the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate concerning theory rejection and the Feyerabend–Kuhn debate about pluralism during normal science. We contend that Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos were [...] Read more.
In this paper, we demonstrate how a systematic taxonomy of stances can help elucidate two classic debates of the historical turn—the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate concerning theory rejection and the Feyerabend–Kuhn debate about pluralism during normal science. We contend that Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos were often talking at cross-purposes due to the lack of an agreed upon taxonomy of stances. Specifically, we provide three distinct stances that scientists take towards theories: acceptance of a theory as the best available description of its domain, use of a theory in practical applications, and pursuit (elaboration) of a theory. We argue that in the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate, Lakatos was concerned with acceptance whereas Feyerabend was mainly concerned with pursuit. Additionally, we show how Feyerabend and Kuhn’s debate on the role of pluralism/monism in normal science involved a crucial conflation of all three stances. Finally, we outline a few general lessons concerning the process of scientific change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meta-Philosophy of Science)
304 KiB  
Article
Philosophy of Information: Revolution in Philosophy. Towards an Informational Metaphilosophy of Science
by Kun Wu and Joseph Brenner
Philosophies 2017, 2(4), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies2040022 - 2 Oct 2017
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 6387
Abstract
In the most general if unconventional terms, science is the study of how man is part of the universe. Philosophy is the study of man’s ideas of the universe and how man differs from the rest of the universe. It has of course [...] Read more.
In the most general if unconventional terms, science is the study of how man is part of the universe. Philosophy is the study of man’s ideas of the universe and how man differs from the rest of the universe. It has of course been recognized that philosophy and science are not totally disjointed. Science is in any case not a monolithic entity but refers to knowledge as the results of reasoning and both invasive and non-invasive experiment. We argue that the philosophy of science, in studying the foundations, methods and implications of science and the link between philosophy and science, must now take into account the impact of the rapidly developing science and philosophy of information. We suggest that the philosophy of information is in fact a metaphilosophy, since informational processes operate in all the sciences and their philosophies. The simplest definition of (a) metaphilosophy is that of a set of statements about (a) philosophy, and any definition of a metaphilosophy thus requires one of philosophy and of the task of philosophy as well. According to Sellars, “the aim of philosophy is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term”. In this paper, we focus on the recursive thought underlying those statements as real processes, occurring both in and between the fundamental and the meta-level. We propose a non-standard logic, Logic in Reality, as the logic of those processes. The metaphilosophy of information is thus a framework for talking about the scientific aspects of philosophy and the philosophical aspects of science. Both Logic in Reality and the metaphilosophy of information provide a basis for understanding the physical and epistemological dynamics of existence, that is, from where the properties of things come that enable both them and the concepts of them to contrast, conflict and ultimately “hang together”. We conclude that the current convergence of science and philosophy under the influence of information science constitutes a revolution in philosophy, that is, in how science and philosophy are done. Many of the issues discussed in the metaphilosophy of information may thus be viewed as part of an emerging informational metaphilosophy of science. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meta-Philosophy of Science)
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