From Decontextualized Science to Social and Historical Context

Abstract

Our discussion of philosophical conceptions of science does not mean that we aim to give another synoptic picture of contemporary philosophy of science. It is our intention to show that, in its internal evolution, the philosophy of science proceeded from decontextualization, decomposition and essentializing, toward less idealized views of science which consider its social and historical nature. In stressing the purifying and idealizing nature of the initial approaches in the Anglo -American philosophy of science we do not intend to be pejorative. Purification purposively omitted those aspects of science which were considered to be unimportant, secondary, or inessential, and concentrated on what was assumed to be constitutive of science itself. We opt for a way of combining them together, which can lead to “contextual understanding”. It is a philosophical understanding of science as an essential element of the form of life in which the philosopher dwells. This unavoidable existential fact participating in a certain, here and now present, form of life is a source of the indispensable situational aspect of any scientific or philosophical description and evaluation.