Michael Friedman. A History of Folding in Mathematics: Mathematizing the Margins. (Science Networks: Historical Studies, 59.) xv + 419 pp., apps., bibl., index. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018. €155 (cloth). ISBN 9783319724867.

AbstractAccording to the American philosopher, Michael Friedman, while triggering the so-called “historical turn,” Kuhn reinstated the history of science as perhaps the most important object for the philosophy of science. In this paper, I show that this reinstatement is rather a rehabilitation of the philosophical and epistemological uses of the history of science, something already present in the continental historiography of science in the first half of the twentieth century, and especially in Gaston Bachelard’s work. In this sense, I undertake a review of the European history and philosophy of science during that period, paying special attention to Gaston Bachelard as one of the leading representatives of the French historical epistemology of the 1930s. I conclude with the late and quite problematic reception of Bachelard’s thought in the early work of Thomas S. Kuhn. My thesis is this strand may help to outline what is continental history and philosophy of science.

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Does Physics Answer Metaphysical Questions?

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement ◽

10.1017/s1358246107000197 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 61 ◽

pp. 179-201 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

James Ladyman

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Framework ◽

History Of Science ◽

A Priori ◽

Logical Empiricism ◽

Logical Positivism ◽

Speed Of Light ◽

Michael Friedman ◽

Rational Thought ◽

History Of ◽

The One

According to logical positivism, so the story goes, metaphysical questions are meaningless, since they do not admit of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, the logical positivists did not in fact reject as meaningless all questions about for example, the structure of space and time. Rather, key figures such as Reichenbach and Schlick believed that scientific theories often presupposed a conceptual framework that was not itself empirically testable, but which was required for the theory as a whole to be empirically testable. For example, the theory of Special Relativity relies upon the simultaneity convention introduced by Einstein that assumes that the one-way speed of light is the same in all directions of space. Hence, the logical positivists accepted an a priori component to physical theories. However, they denied that this a priori component is necessarily true. Whereas for Kant, metaphysics is the a priori science of the necessary structure of rational thought about reality (rather than about things in themselves), the logical positivists were forced by the history of science to accept that the a priori structure of theories could change. Hence, they defended a notion of what Michael Friedman (1999) calls the ‘relativised’ or the ‘constitutive’ a priori. Carnap and Reichenbach held that such an a priori framework was conventional, whereas Schlick seems to have been more of a realist and held that the overall relative simplicity of different theories could count as evidence for their truth, notwithstanding the fact that some parts of them are not directly testable. All this is part of the story of how the verification principle came to be abandoned, and how logical positivism transmuted into logical empiricism.

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Michael Friedman and the “marriage” of history and philosophy of science (and history of philosophy)

Metascience ◽

10.1007/s11016-013-9845-8 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 225-232 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Thomas Sturm

Keyword(s):

Philosophy Of Science ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Michael Friedman ◽

History Of

Download Full-text

Does Physics Answer Metaphysical Questions?

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement ◽

10.1017/s1358246100009796 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 61 ◽

pp. 179-201

Author(s):

James Ladyman

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Framework ◽

History Of Science ◽

A Priori ◽

Logical Empiricism ◽

Logical Positivism ◽

Speed Of Light ◽

Michael Friedman ◽

Rational Thought ◽

History Of ◽

The One

According to logical positivism, so the story goes, metaphysical questions are meaningless, since they do not admit of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, the logical positivists did not in fact reject as meaningless all questions about for example, the structure of space and time. Rather, key figures such as Reichenbach and Schlick believed that scientific theories often presupposed a conceptual framework that was not itself empirically testable, but which was required for the theory as a whole to be empirically testable. For example, the theory of Special Relativity relies upon the simultaneity convention introduced by Einstein that assumes that the one-way speed of light is the same in all directions of space. Hence, the logical positivists accepted an a priori component to physical theories. However, they denied that this a priori component is necessarily true. Whereas for Kant, metaphysics is the a priori science of the necessary structure of rational thought about reality (rather than about things in themselves), the logical positivists were forced by the history of science to accept that the a priori structure of theories could change. Hence, they defended a notion of what Michael Friedman (1999) calls the ‘relativised’ or the ‘constitutive’ a priori. Carnap and Reichenbach held that such an a priori framework was conventional, whereas Schlick seems to have been more of a realist and held that the overall relative simplicity of different theories could count as evidence for their truth, notwithstanding the fact that some parts of them are not directly testable. All this is part of the story of how the verification principle came to be abandoned, and how logical positivism transmuted into logical empiricism.

Download Full-text