creators_name: Lennox, James G.
type: pittpreprint
datestamp: 2001-08-21
lastmod: 2010-10-07 15:10:25
metadata_visibility: show
title: History and Philosophy of Science: A Phylogenetic Approach
subjects: history-of-philosophy-of-science
full_text_status: public
keywords: HPS, fitness, natural selection, phylogenetic
abstract: Kuhn closed the Introduction to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions with what was clearly intended as a rhetorical question: How could history of science fail to be a source of phenomena to which theories about knowledge may legitimately be asked to apply? (Kuhn 1970, 9) This paper argues that there is a more fruitful way of conceiving the relationship between a historical and philosophical study of science, which is dubbed the 'phylogenetic' approach. I sketch an example of this approach, and take a first pass at an abstract characterization of the method.
date: 2001-01
date_type: published
refereed: FALSE
citation: Lennox, James G. (2001) History and Philosophy of Science: A Phylogenetic Approach. [Preprint]
document_url: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/378/1/HPS_Phylogenetic.doc