Extreme variation in the meaning of the term “species” throughout the history of biology has often frustrated attempts of historians, philosophers and biologists to communicate with one another about the transition in biological thinking from the static species concept to the modern notion of evolving species. The most important change which has underlain all the other fluctuations in the meaning of the word “species” is the change from it denoting such metaphysical entities as essences, Forms or Natures to denoting classes (...) of individual organisms. Several authors have taken notice of the role of metaphysics in the work of particular biologists. An attempt will be made in this paper to present a systematic investigation of the role which metaphysics has played in the work of representative biologists throughout the history of biology, especially as it relates to their species concepts. (shrink)

A consensus exists among contemporary philosophers of biology about the history of their field. According to the received view, mainstream philosophy of science in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s focused on physics and general epistemology, neglecting analyses of the 'special sciences', including biology. The subdiscipline of philosophy of biology emerged (and could only have emerged) after the decline of logical positivism in the 1960s and 70s. In this article, I present bibliometric data from four major philosophy of science journals (Erkenntnis, (...) Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science), covering 1930-59, which challenge this view. (shrink)

As a challenge to those who do not give much credit to reflecting on sociology as a science, this essay stresses the import of metatheoretical considerations. Aft er all, what is known as postmodern discourse is scarcely a little more than metatheorizing and the phenomenon of the so-called “crisis of sociology” cannot be comprehended without some metatheoretical premises. Knowledge about knowledge should therefore form a special field of inquiry and enjoy its relative autonomy. In this article, the place for metasociology (...) is delimitated by the account of the development of the general science of science. While the prefi x “meta-” originally came from linguistics as a way to differentiate a proposition about an object of science from a proposition about science itself, the history of metatheorizing can be traced back to ancient philosophy. Hence, the most important sources of inspiration for this intellectual activity are epistemology and the philosophy of science. A crucial moment in their development was the so-called “crisis in physics” that carried over to social sciences and spawned many contemporary trends such as the multicultural approach to sociology and the radical stance of methodological anarchism. The major philosophical orientations that have most directly addressed the questions about the scientific knowledge have been neopositivism and analytical philosophy on one hand, and phenomenology on the other one. No claims about metasociology can be made without being acquainted with at least the elementary positions in this exchange of ideas that took place in the philosophy of science. Metasociology, itself divided into metatheory and metamethodology, makes up an integral part of the science of science. (shrink)