"Whither
Philosophy of Science? Logical Empiricism and
Philosophy of Science in the Early Twenty-First Century"
Abstract:
No one is today a logical empiricist.
Yet, so it seems, there are still graduate
training programs that find an important philosophical link between
logic and
philosophy of science. My talk will
sketch the vision of “the logic of science” that was the
main project of logical
empiricism from the 1930s onward. I will
attempt to answer the historical question as to why logical empiricism
stressed
such a link between logic and philosophy of science—and do so in
a way that
differs from a standard account in which logical empiricism used logic
as a
tool to fulfill its deeper and prior philosophical commitment to
empiricism. I argue that was ultimately
at stake was a reformation of philosophy itself into a scientific
domain of
technical projects, prosecuted with the tools of logic. With this
understanding of logical empiricism
in hand, the talk will raise anew some fundamental questions regarding
the
philosophical significance of “post-positivist” philosophy
of science,
especially debates over the proper tools and methods of philosophy of
science
as exemplified by the “role for history” in the work of
Thomas Kuhn,
“naturalized” philosophy of science, pluralism and disunity
of science, and increasingly
visible debates, both in our society and in our profession, regarding
science
and value.