Current philosophical reflections on science have departed from mainstream history of science with respect to both methodology and conclusions. The article investigates how different approaches to reconstructing commitments can explain these differences and facilitate a mutual understanding and communication of these two perspectives on science. Translating the differences into problems pertaining to principles of charity, the paper offers a platform for clarification and resolution of the differences between the two perspectives. The outlined contextual approach occupies a middle ground between mainstream (...) history and sociology of science, bracketing questions of rationality, and individual coherence-maximizing, rationality-centered approaches. It can satisfy those, who believe that science is an epistemically privileged endeavor, and its epistemic content should not be neglected when reconstructing the scientists’ positions. It can also satisfy those who hold that it is naive to believe that the immediate context, e.g. the challenges to a theory, the expectations of the author about his audience, etc., does not affect the position a scientist takes. Its theoretical considerations are exemplified with a close study of the debate following the 1672 publication of Newton's theory of light and colours, also offering a novel reading of the development of his methodological views concerning the demonstrativity of the famous crucial experiment. Although we only show the capacity of the framework to analyze a direct controversy, given that it is hard to think about any scientific text as detached from an argumentative context, this approach has the potential to be a general guide for interpretation. (shrink)

Olaf Müller’s book develops a new case for underdetermination, and, as he is focusing on theories of a ‘limited domain’, this assumes the containability of the theories. First, the paper argues that Müller’s theory of darkness is fundamentally Newtonian, but for Newton’s optical theory the type of theoretical structure Müller adopts is problematic. Second, the paper discusses seventeenth-century challenges to Newton, changes in the proof-structure of Newton’s optical theory, and how these affect Müller’s reconstruction. Müller’s book provides empirically equivalent theories, (...) yet the historical theories were not empirically equivalent, and the same experiments were used to extract different bodies of evidence to rebut the opponent. Third, Goethe’s multi-layered critique of Newton’s experimental proof is investigated, including his developmental account of prismatic colours, the role of experimental series in rejecting Newton’s observations, and his incorporation of the ‘limited domain’ of prismatic colours in a broader framework. Two key elements of Goethe’s method, polarity and strengthening are discussed in contrast to Müller, who only utilises polarity in his account. Finally Neurath’s attempts to come to grips with the optical controversies and the prism-experiments with ‘blurred edges’ are recalled. Müller also discusses in detail some of these experiments and heavily draws on Quine. Neurath developed Duhem’s and Poincaré’s conventionalist insights and had good reasons to be pessimistic about theory-containment. Their differences provide some additions to the history of the Duhem–Quine thesis. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism is connected to the recognition that protocol sentences are not inviolable, that is they are fallible and their choice cannot be determined: ‘Poincaré, Duhem and others have adequately shown that even if we have agreed on the protocol statements, there is a not limited number of equally applicable, possible systems of hypotheses. We have extended this tenet of the uncertainty of systems of hypotheses to all statements, including protocol statements that are alterable in principle’. Later historiography (...) has called Neurath’s extension of Duhemian holism the Neurath principle. Based on a study of Neurath’s early works on the history of optics, the paper investigates a previously unnoticed influence on the development of this principle, Neurath’s reading of Goethe’s Theory of colours. The historical and polemical parts of Goethe’s tripartite book provided Neurath with ideal examples for the vertical extension of Duhem’s thesis to observation statements. Moreover, Goethe’s critique of the language of science and his views on the theory-ladenness of observation, as well as on the history of science show strong parallels to many of Neurath’s ideas. These demonstrate the existence of surprisingly direct textual links between Romantic views on science and the development of twentieth-century philosophy of science. Neurath’s usage of Goethe’s examples also indicates that the birth of the Neurath principle is more tightly connected to actual scientific practice than to theory-testing, and that by admitting the theory-ladenness of observation reports and fallibility of protocol statements Neurath does not throw empiricism overboard.Keywords: Otto Neurath; J. W. von Goethe; Holism; Theory-ladenness; Duhem-Quine thesis; Romantic science. (shrink)

The essay discusses congruency issues in the biosemiotic approach of the Danish biochemist, Jesper Hoffmeyer. The authors understand Hoffmeyer’s anti-reductionistic approach to be similar to Michael Polanyi’s multi-layered ontology, but suggest that the Polanyian approach has fewer handicaps as a model-building enterprise. We offer a historical review of Hoffmeyer’s polarized narrative of 20th century biology and investigate his central thesis that life and semiosis are coextensive. We argue that Hoffmeyer conflates temporal and spatial features of semiotic systems, his account of (...) emergentism is unclear and the relationship between semiotic evolution and punctuated equilibrium is vague, possibly entailing incongruent metaphysical views. (shrink)

Different approaches to expertise and argumentation are discussed. After introducing the problem of expertise and its present day significance in a historical context, various connections with the study of arguments are highlighted. The need for and potential of argumentation analysis to contribute to existing research in social epistemology, science studies, and cognitive science, is discussed, touching on the problems of reasoning and argumentation, embodiment, tacit knowledge, expert context versus public context, expert disagreement, persuasion versus justification, and argument analysis as meta-expertise. (...) As the arguments used by experts constitute a boundary object, we presume that a dialogue format is suitable to address central problems of the special issue “Rethinking Arguments from Experts”. (shrink)