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History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics
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Extract

“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind”. Taking its cue from this paraphrase of Kant's famous dictum, this paper intends to explain how the historiography of science should learn from the philosophy of science and vice versa. It will be argued that (a) philosophy of science provides normative methodologies in terms of which the historian reconstructs ‘internal history’ and thereby provides a rational explanation of the growth of objective knowledge; (b) two competing methodologies can be evaluated with the help of (normatively interpreted) history; (c) any rational reconstruction of history needs to be supplemented by an empirical (socio-psychological) ‘external history’.

The vital demarcation between normative-internal and empirical-external is different for each methodology. Jointly, internal and external historiographical theories determine to a very large extent the choice of problems for the historian.

Type
Symposium: History of Science and Its Rational Reconstruction
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1970 , 1970 , pp. 91 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1970

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Footnotes

*

The notes are to be found on pp. 122-34. It is to be regretted that they could not be printed at the foot of each page, because they form an integral part of the paper (Ed.).

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