Abstract

The general objective of this study is to show how the history of science and the philosophy of science can interact to the mutual illumination of both disciplines. With respect to the philosophical dimension, I first provide an exposition and a critique of C. I. Lewis's theory of knowledge. The critique focuses on three issues: the extraconceptual given; analyticity; and the nature of meaning in relation to what Lewis calls 'the pure concept'. I respond to each of these criticisms in the process of taking the first steps toward constructing a narrower, more specialized epistemology of science adequate to elucidate the origin and nature of scientific knowledge. I also show how the new S-epistemology compares with the original Lewisian epistemology. ;With respect to the historical dimension, I provide a standard treatment of the development of the gene concept, viz. the search for, and elucidation of, the Genetic Atomic Unit, or G.A.U. Philosophically, the underlying epistemological foundation of the standard historical accounts is epistemological objectivism. In contrast, I provide an interpretation/analysis using the S-epistemology developed earlier. This latter treatment highlights the role of the subject, or of the mind, or of the a priori in a way that epistemological objectivism does not. ;Finally, using Lewis's discussion of conceptual frameworks as a springboard, I show how Kuhn's concept of a paradigm can be construed as a special case. This leads to a discussion of theory change and scientific development using the shift from Mendelian genetics to molecular genetics as the focus of discussion. I argue that the shift from MeG to MoG is not a Kuhnian revolution in a precise sense, and that this particular shift constitutes a counterexample to Kuhn's theory inasmuch as Kuhn claims to be analyzing the development of the most significant episodes in the history of science