Philosophy of Science and Its Historical Reconstructions

Abstract

The title of this chapter alludes, of course, to a famous article by Imre Lakatos, “History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions.” It is also meant to invoke the title of another celebrated article, itself teasingly resonating with Lakatos’s, by Steven Shapin, “History of Science and Its Sociological Reconstructions” (Shapin 1982). Both Lakatos and Shapin wanted to talk about how best to do the history of science, but my own intention is not to tell people how to do the philosophy of science. However, I do value the disciplinary intersection of “history and philosophy of science” (HPS); consequently, my subject is what I think HPS used to be about, and what it could still offer us.