Abstract

THE GENERATION which separates Hempel's latest major publication from his first has seen the philosophy of science come into its own as one of the chief subdivisions of philosophy, with a recognizable and coherent set of problems yielding to a recognizable and coherent set of strategies for solution. Not, of course, that in 1936 the philosophy of science was a new discipline—far from it: if anybody deserves credit for getting the field started it is probably Democritus. Nor that the publication of Der Typusbegriff marked a new era in the development of the subject, the recent literature of which included, after all, The Logic of Modern Physics, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, and Logik der Forschung. The point which these facts illustrate is simply that Hempel's professional career spans a period of intense activity during which the philosophical discipline to which he has made his greatest contribution arrived at an evident maturity and autonomy. The aim of this essay is to examine his contribution to that activity, and to deal with some recent arguments to the effect that the process of development has carried the philosophy of science away from science itself, on which in some sense or other it clearly depends for its intellectual relevance and honesty.