Abstract

The Diversity of Science in Carnap's, Lewin's and Fleck's Philosophy: Toward a Pluralistic Point of View. In the 1920s and 1930s three different but simultaneous approaches of philosophy of science can be distinguished: the logical approach of the physicist Rudolf Carnap, the logico-historical approach of the psychologist Kurt Lewin and the socio-historical approach of the medical scientist Ludwik Fleck. While the philosophies of Lewin and Fleck can be characterized as contextual appraisals which account for the interactions between particular sciences and their historical, socio-cultural or intellectual environments, Carnap's philosophy is narrowed to an internal methodology centered on scientific propositions and logical structures in general. In addition to these differences in aim and practice of methodological analysis the estimation of the real disunity and diversity of the special branches of science differs. Instead of Carnap's ideal of a unified science from the new pluralistic point of view the evaluation of the empirical multiplicity of particular sciences obtains philosophical acceptance