I argue that it was rational for chemists to eliminate phlogiston, but that it also would have been rational for them to retain it. I do so on the grounds that a number of prominent phlogiston theorists identified phlogiston with hydrogen in the late 18th century, and this identification became fairly well entrenched by the early 19th century. In light of this identification, I critically evaluate Hasok Chang’s argument that chemists should have retained phlogiston, and that doing so would have (...) benefited science. I argue that these benefits would have been unlikely, and I go on to consider some more likely benefits and harms of retaining phlogiston. I conclude that there is a sense in which scientific rationality concerns what is permissible, as opposed to what is required, so that retention and elimination may, at least sometimes, both be rationally permissible options. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold purpose. First, it aims at highlighting one difference in how counterfactuals work in general history, on the one hand, and in history of the natural sciences, on the other hand. As we show, both in general history and in history of science good counterfactual narratives need to be plausible, where plausibility is construed as appropriate continuity of both the antecedent and the consequent of the counterfactual with what we know about the world. However, in general (...) history it is often possible to imagine a consequent dramatically different from the actual historical development, and yet plausible; in history of science, due to plausibility concerns, imagining a consequent far removed from the results of actual science seems more complicated. The second aim of the paper is to assess whether and to what degree counterfactual histories of science can advance the cause of the so-called “contingency thesis,” namely, the claim that history of science might have followed a path leading to alternative, non-equivalent theories, as successful as the ones that we currently embrace. We distinguish various versions of the contingency thesis and argue that counterfactual histories of science support weak versions of the thesis. (shrink)

When two or more (groups of) researchers independently investigating the same domain arrive at the same result, a multiple discovery occurs. The pervasiveness of multiple discoveries in science suggests the intuition that they are in some sense inevitable—that one should view them as results that force themselves upon us, so to speak. We argue that, despite the intuitive force of such an “inevitabilist insight,” one should reject it. More specifically, we distinguish two facets of the insight and argue that: (a) (...) the profusion of multiple discoveries in scientific practice does not support the inevitabilist side of the inevitability/contingency of science controversy; and (b) the crucial role of background knowledge in scientific inquiry complicates the attempt to interpret the pervasiveness of multiple discoveries in realist terms. (shrink)

In recent decades many sociologists and philosophers of science, especially the so-called ‘new experimentalists’, have stressed the need for detailed studies of real, ongoing experimental practices, and have claimed that a new image of science results from such an approach. Among the new objects of interest that have emerged from laboratory studies, an important one is the tacit dimension of scientific practices. Harry Collins, in particular, has insisted that irreducibly tacit presuppositions and skills are inevitably involved in experimental practices, and (...) that these tacit resources play an essential role in the stabilization of successful scientific achievements. What I will call the ‘opacity of experimental practices’ has been analyzed in different ways, but on the whole, it has been claimed to have harmful epistemological consequences with respect to crucial issues such as the nature of experimental facts, scientific realism, scientific rationality, and the contingency of what acquires the status of an established scientific result in practitioners’ eyes. Such claims remain highly controversial. The aim of this paper is to discuss the epistemological implications of the involvement of tacit resources in experimental practices and to provide helpful conceptual tools with respect to the issue of tacit resources in science. Specifically, the paper provides an analytical clarification of the relation between the opacity of experimental practices and the principle of experimenters substitutability, the latter being a principle commonly viewed as a necessary feature of any good science. Serious doubts are finally raised about the validity of the experimenters substitutability principle, and the impact of these doubts with respect to the contingency of scientific facts and results is considered. (shrink)

Multiple simultaneous independent discoveries, so well enunciated by Robert K. Merton in the early 1960s but already discussed for several hundreds of years, is a classic concept in the sociology of science. In this paper, the concept of multiple simultaneous independent errors is proposed, analyzed, and discussed. The concept of Selective Pessimistic Induction is proposed and used to connect MIDs with MIEs. Five types of MIEs are discussed: multiple errors in the interpretation of experimental data or computational results; multiple misjudgments (...) of the value of another’s research results or conclusions; multiple cases of false anticipation of achieving a certain experimental result; multiples of ignoring or omitting relevant precedents; and multiple instances of failure due to a not-yet-conceived scientific concept or principle. Causal MIDs and MIEs are those that can be traced directly to antecedent knowledge. Acausal MIDs and MIEs are those involving a consequential and identifiable leap from antecedent knowledge. Examples of causal and acausal MIEs are provided, mostly but not exclusively from the discipline of chemistry. Comparisons are made between MIDs and MIEs. Topics for future research are discussed and implications of these concepts are proposed. (shrink)

The contingentist/inevitabilist debate contests whether the results of successful science are contingent or inevitable. This article addresses lingering ambiguity in the way contingency is defined in this debate. I argue that contingency in science can be understood as a collection of distinct concepts, distinguished by how they hold science contingent, by what elements of science they hold contingent, and by what those elements are contingent upon. I present a preliminary taxonomy designed to characterize the full-range positions available and illustrate that (...) these constitute a diverse array rather than a spectrum. (shrink)

This paper presents a survey of the literature on the problem of contingency in science. The survey is structured around three challenges faced by current attempts at understanding the conflict between “contingentist” and “inevitabilist” interpretations of scientific knowledge and practice. First, the challenge of definition: it proves hard to define the positions that are at stake in a way that is both conceptually rigorous and does justice to the plethora of views on the issue. Second, the challenge of distinction: some (...) features of the debate suggest that the contingency issue may not be sufficiently distinct from other philosophical debates to constitute a genuine, independent philosophical problem. And third, the challenge of decidability: it remains unclear whether and how the conflict could be settled on the basis of empirical evidence from the actual history of science. The paper argues that in order to make progress in the present debate, we need to distinguish more systematically between different expressions that claims about contingency and inevitability in science can take. To this end, it introduces a taxonomy of different contingency and inevitability claims. The taxonomy has the structure of an ordered quadruple. Each contingency and each inevitability claim contains an answer to the following four questions: (how) are alternatives to current science possible, what types of alternatives are we talking about, how should the alternatives be assessed, and how different are they from actual science? (shrink)

I reject both (a) inevitabilism about the historical development of the sciences and (b) what Ian Hacking calls the "put up or shut up" argument against those who make contingentist claims. Each position is guilty of a lack of humility about our epistemic capacities.

In a recent article in this journal, Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh propose a normative basis for John Dupré’s criticisms of scientific imperialism, namely, that scientific imperialism can cause a discipline to fail to progress in ways that it otherwise would have. This proposal is based on two presuppositions: one, that scientific disciplines have developmental teleologies, and two, that these teleologies are optimal. I argue that we should reject both of these presuppositions and so conclude that Clarke and Walsh’s proposal (...) is insufficiently warranted for it to provide a normative basis for criticisms of scientific imperialism. (shrink)

The contingentist/inevitabilist debate contests whether the results of successful science are contingent or inevitable. This article addresses lingering ambiguity in the way contingency is defined in this debate. I argue that contingency in science can be understood as a collection of distinct concepts, distinguished by how they hold science contingent, by what elements of science they hold contingent, and by what those elements are contingent upon. I present a preliminary taxonomy designed to characterize the full-range positions available and illustrate that (...) these constitute a diverse array rather than a spectrum. (shrink)

We have previously argued that historical cases must be rendered canonical before they can plausibly serve as evidence for philosophical claims, where canonicity is established through a process of negotiation among historians and philosophers of science (Bolinska and Martin, 2020). Here, we extend this proposal by exploring how that negotiation might take place in practice. The working stock of historical examples that philosophers tend to employ has long been established informally, and, as a result, somewhat haphazardly. The composition of the (...) historical canon of philosophy of science is therefore path dependent, and cases often become stock examples for reasons tangential to their appropriateness for the purposes at hand. We show how the lack of rigor around the canonization of case studies has muddied the waters in selected philosophical debates. This, in turn, lays the groundwork for proposing ways in which they can be improved. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2012.

A number of prominent defenders of the phlogiston theory identified phlogiston with hydrogen in the late eighteenth century, and I argue that this identification was fairly well-entrenched by the early nineteenth century. In light of this identification, I examine the ways in which retaining phlogiston could have retarded scientific progress, and also the ways in which it could have benefited science. I argue that it was rational for chemists to eliminate phlogiston, but that it also would have been rational for (...) them to retain it. I situate my arguments for these claims in relation to Hasok Chang's recent work on the Chemical Revolution. And I conclude that there is a sense in which scientific rationality concerns what is permissible, as opposed to what is required, so that retention and elimination may, at least sometimes, both be rationally permissible options. (shrink)

Contemporary metaphilosophical debates on the future of philosophy invariably include references to the natural sciences. This is wholly understandable given the cognitive and cultural authority of the sciences and their contributions to philosophical thought and practice. However such appeals to the sciences should be moderated by reflections on contingency of sciences. Using the work of contemporary historians and philosophers of science, I argue that an awareness of the radical contingency of science supports the claim that philosophy’s future should not be (...) construed as either dependent or necessarily related to that of the sciences. Therefore contemporary debates – about the possibility of philosophy’s status as a science, say – should be tempered by an appreciation of the fact that science may cease to be a significant feature of future metaphilosophical debates. I conclude by considering the implications of this claim for assessments of the progressiveness of philosophy. (shrink)