Philosophy of History and History of Philosophy of Science

Abstract

Philosophy of history and history of philosophy of science make for an interesting case of "mutual containment": the former is an object of inquiry for the latter and the latter is subject to the demands of the former. This paper discusses a seminal turn in past philosophy of history with an eye to the practice of historians of philosophy of science. The narrative turn by Danto and Mink represents both a liberation for historians and a new challenge to the objectivity of their findings. I will claim that good sense can be made of "working historical veins of possibility" (contrary to how the phrase was originally intended) and that already Danto and Mink provided materials (though they did not quite advertize them as such) to assuage fears of a constructivist free-for-all.

Chronicle, Genealogy and Narrative: Understanding Synthetic Biology in the Image of Historiography

“…In this chapter, the history of historiography and the philosophy of history is brought to the aid of the history and philosophy of science (Uebel 2017;Roth 2020;Virmajoki 2020;Kuukkanen 2012). Narrative has sometimes been taken to define historical knowledge, and to define it in contrast with scientific knowledge.…”