The Philosophy of Historical Case Studies (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science Book 319)

This volume collects reflections on the role of philosophy in case studies in the history of science. Case studies have played a prominent role in recent history and philosophy of science. They have been used to illustrate, question, explore, or explicate philosophical points of view. Even if not explicitly so, historical narratives are always guided by philosophical background assumptions. But what happens if different philosophies lead to different narratives of the same historical episodes? Can historical case studies decide between competing philosophical viewpoints? What are the criteria that a case study has to fulfill in order to be philosophically relevant? Bringing together leading practitioners in the fields of history and philosophy of the physical and the life sciences, this volume addresses this methodological problem and proposes ways of rendering explicit philosophical assumptions of historical work. Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-8 Front Matter....Pages 9-9 How to Save the Symmetry Principle....Pages 11-29 “Baseline” and “Snapshot”: Philosophical Reflections on an Approach to Historical Case Studies....Pages 31-47 Two Modes of Reasoning with Case Studies....Pages 49-67 Towards a Methodology for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science....Pages 69-91 Front Matter....Pages 93-93 Two Kinds of Case Study and a New Agreement....Pages 95-121 Pluralism in Historiography: A Case Study of Case Studies....Pages 123-149 Contrasting Cases: The Lotka-Volterra Model Times Three....Pages 151-178 Gone Till November: A Disagreement in Einstein Scholarship....Pages 179-200 Front Matter....Pages 201-201 From Discrepancy to Discovery: How Argon Became an Element....Pages 203-222 “So How Do We Know that the Moon Is Mountainous?” Problems of Seeing in Galileo’s Reflections on Observing the Moon....Pages 223-250 Multiple Perspectives on the Stern-Gerlach Experiment....Pages 251-263 From Zymes to Germs: Discarding the Realist/Anti-Realist Framework....Pages 265-283 Heisenberg’s Umdeutung: A Case for a (Quantum-)Dialogue Between History and Philosophy of Science....Pages 285-296