Filosofía de la ciencia e historia de la ciencia

• Autores: Valeriano Iranzo García
• Localización: Quaderns de Filosofia i Ciència, ISSN-e 0213-5965, Nº. 35, 2005, págs. 19-43
• Idioma: español
• Enlaces
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• Dialnet Métricas: 4 Citas
• Resumen

  • The paper analyzes which is the proper role of history of science in philosophy of science. I argue that, traditionally, philosophy of science has focused on the normative dimension of science. Several positions within philosophy of science stem from different perspectives on such dimension. I classify them according to two variables (descriptivism/prescriptivism, and historicism/non-historicism). Then I discuss the role of history of science within all these four alternatives. I conclude that: (1) philosophers and historians pursue not only different, but opposite aims; (2) historical evidence is useful for assessing the relation between methods and results; besides this, only very simple or radical philosophical views can be ¿refuted¿ by historical evidence; (3) the disagreement between those who think that history of science is necessary for philosophy of science and those who think it is not is, in fact, a disagreement about the prospects for a general theory of science; (4) such disagreement cannot be resolved appealing to historical evidence; if it can be resolved, philosophical arguments should somehow be invoked.