Historical Pragmatics

For 35 years, the critical and creative writings of Robert E. Butts have been a notable and welcome part of European and North American philosophy. A few years ago, James Robert Brown and Jiirgen Mittelstrass feted Professor Butts with a volume entitled An Intimate Relation (Boston Studies vol. 116, 1989), essays by twenty-six philosophers and historians of the sciences. And that joining of philosophers and historians was impressive evidence of the 'intimate relation' between historical illumination and philosophical understanding which is characteristic of Butts throughout his work. Not alone, Butts has been, and is, one of this generation's most incisive thinkers, devoted to responsible textual scholarship and equally responsible imaginative interpretation. Brown and Mittelstrass said that "throughout his writings, science, its philosophy, and its history have been treated as a seamless web", and I would add only that philosophy per se is a part of the web too. Here in this book before us are the results, a lovely collection from the work of Robert Butts, who is for so many of his colleagues, students and readers, Mr. HPS, the model philosophical historian and historical philosopher of the sciences. July 1993 Robert S. Cohen Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University TABLE OF CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE IX INTRODUCTION Xl PART I EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 1. Some tactics in Galileo's propaganda for the mathematization of scientific experience 3 2.

Texte du rabat

The thirteen essays in this volume (except for the one on Leibniz, which has not been published before) are selected works of Robert E. Butts, originally published over a period of many years. Most of the essays analyze aspects of the work of Galileo, Leibniz, Kant and Whewell; others deal with the question of the unity of the sciences and with the question of toleration in academe.br/ The papers share a common philosophical commitment to principle of pragmatism, and seek to show that pragmatism emerges historically in unexpected places. Emphasis is placed upon issues in methodology and theory of knowledge. The book will appeal to those interested in history of modern philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and the philosophical fortunes of pragmatism. br/

Résumé
Cohen Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University TABLE OF CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE IX INTRODUCTION Xl PART I EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 1.

Contenu

1. Some tactics in Galileo's propaganda for the mathematization of scientific experience.- 2. Leibniz on choosing between rival scientific hypotheses.- 3. Philosophers as professional relativists.- 4. Kant's schemata as semantical rules.- 5. The methodological structure of Kant's metaphysics of science.- 6. Teleology and scientific method in Kant's Critique of Judgment.- 7. The grammar of reason: Hamann's challenge to Kant.- 8. Metaphysics, methodology and the pragmatic unity of the sciences.- 9. Necessary truth in Whewell's theory of science.- 10. Whewell's logic of induction.- 11. Consilience of inductions and the problem of conceptual change in science.- 12. Whewell on Newton's rules of philosophizing.- 13. 'A purely scientific temper': Victorian expressions of the ideal of an autonomous science.- Bibliography of Works Cited.- Index of Names and Subjects.