In this last post before August, I sketch a conceptual framework for estimating the future[1] of science. The framework relies on the close connections between explaining the past and estimating the future. My dissertation and the work surrounding it focused on the question of how to understand the development of science. I have argued that […]
Wender Bell, Futures Studies, and the Conception of Foundations of a Science
Are there natural sciences? Surely, there exist what are known as natural sciences, i.e. sciences that study natural phenomena, but my question concerns sciences as phenomena – are some sciences more natural than others? This question may sound weird. Sciences[1] are human creations and therefore they are not natural in the same sense as elephants […]
Ex on the Beach. A Week in the Philosophy of Historiography
I have spent this week writing about philosophy of historiography, a topic I spent time with during my twenties. I wrote a text to the blog of Oulu Centre for Philosophical Studies of History where I discuss the relationship between historiography and science and the connections between philosophy of historiography and philosophy of science. I […]
Nice and Smooth, Except Not
In this post, I analyze the assumptions about science that are implicit in this picture. 1. Scientific advance can be measured in one dimension. It is not entirely clear what this dimension is supposed to be (and how the aggregate from the contributions of different science is calculated), but the picture suggests that scientific advance […]
Duck, You Sucker! Causal Layered Analysis and Philosophy of Science
Sohail Inayatullah (1998) has formulated a method of futures studies called Causal layered analysis (CLA). This method “is concerned less with predicting a particular future and more with opening up the present and past to create alternative futures” (815). It is a “method that reveals deep worldview committments [sic] behind surface phenomena” (815). CLA consist […]
Like Desperados Waiting for a Train. What Have I Learned from the Historians of Science? (1)
1. Things really do change. When I started reading general philosophy of science, I absorbed the idea that the history of science can be used to illustrate and even as evidence in the philosophy of science. I went to a library and started to read a book by Alexandre Koyré. I was very confused when […]
The Hostage. On the Contingency vs. Inevitability Problem and the No Miracles Argument
This post is based on an argument that was left out from my 2018 paper “Could Science Be Interestingly Different?”. I am happy to hear how one could untangle the No Miracles Argument and the contingency-debate, so please let me know. — The discussion about the contingency/inevitability problem has received much attention recently.[1] The debate […]
Counterfactual histories and possible futures
Edit. See also Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. Part 2 discussing how to assess historiographical counterfactuals. https://blogit.utu.fi/futuresofscience/2021/11/16/put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is-part-2-counterfactuals-frameworks-futures/ There has been discussion about the relevance of historiographers’ “toolkit of thinking” in futures studies. In order to understand the possible relationships between historiography and futures studies, the claims made about historiographical toolkit must be critically […]
Ricky Gervais, the pull of the nature and the inevitability vs. contingency of science
The following caption of Ricky Gervais analyzing the difference between science and religion (taken from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOi2AgNfQCg) is widely used in memes around the internet. I appreciate that Ricky Gervais speaks for science and does so in an eloquent and intuitively compelling manner. However, I want to make some (critical) comments on the topic: First […]
Scientific Explanation as Historical Explanation (of some cases)
In this post, I discuss the role of scientific explanation in explaining the historical development of science. I argue that we often need scientific knowledge to provide such explanations and therefore the relationship between historical explanations and future estimations is complicated in the case of science. (More detailed analysis of the issues in this post […]