”It may be possible to excise all inductive ingredients from science, but if the operation were successful, the patient (science), deprived of all predictive import, would die” (Salmon 1981, 125). In previous posts, I have suggested that we should approach the estimating of possible futures (of science) in a theory-driven way: We need to use […]
Theoretical Structures in the Estimating the Futures of Science
I suggest that theoretical knowledge is in the essence of understanding the possible structures of future within which more specific events take place. It is a nice coincidence that Kuhn named his famous book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” as this sense of structure is what I have mind in here. Let’s use Kuhn as […]
Should We Correct Historiography on the Basis of What Happened Later?
In the journal Futures and Foresight Science 2(3-4) there have been interesting discussions about the relationship between historiography and futures research. The following passage from Martin Kunc’s “A modeler’s perspective: A commentary on Schoemaker 2020” was especially interesting: “Schoemaker states, ‘The word forecasting captures this very notion, suggesting that the momentum of the past casts itself forward, […]
Historical Counterfactuals Unconditionalized
It has been argued many times in the literature concerning historical counterfactuals that “When implementing a counterfactual antecedent, the historian thus asks what conditions would have to be present in order for the antecedent to follow from these conditions, and whether these conditions were likely.” (Reiss 2009, 719). I have discussed this issue in detail […]
Classics in Historiography of Science: Robert K. Merton
In this post, I will continue my discussion about central figures in the history of historiography of science. I discuss Robert K. Merton’s views on science and, following the approach in the previous classics post, I analyze those views from the perspective of current conceptions of and interests towards science. It will be interesting to […]
Deep Historiography, Valid Futures?
In this post, I argue that the criteria of external validity in the futures research and the criteria for explanatory depth in historiography share important conceptual similarities. The similarities suggest many interesting connections between historiographical insights and futures research. — According to Kuusi, Cuhls and Steinmüller (2015), we can explicate the notion of external validity […]
Invariances in History, Science, and Future
In this post, I discuss to what extent the concept of invariance can connect historiography, sciences, and futures studies. I argue that we can find invariances concerning human activities, especially in the case of science. I argue that (a) science, historiography, and futures studies require knowledge of invariances, and (b) knowledge of invariances enable us […]
A Brief Note on Scientific Breakthroughs
Recently, we discussed about scientific breakthroughs in Tiedepiiri[1] (“The Circle of Science”). While this phenomenon is a close relative of scientific discovery, scientific innovation, and scientific revolution, the language of scientific breakthroughs has no established meanings in academic research concerning science. The concepts of discovery, revolution, innovation, and breakthrough all have different connotations. Roughly: Discovery […]
How to Approach History of Science Objectively? Presentism in Historiography
See the paper https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718993 discussing the ideas in this post. — In this post, I discuss some major conceptual and philosophical problems that the historiography of science faces. These problems are important for the estimating of the future of science since they question our ability to connect the past to the present and our ability […]
Classics of Historiography of Science. George Sarton
This post begins a series of posts that focus on some canonical figures and texts in the historiography of science. I write about their conceptions of history, science and future. Already in this text, the essential connection between history and future will arise. Beyond that, I find these figures interesting for many reasons. First, the […]