So close no matter how far: counterfactuals in history of science and the inevitability/contingency controversy (2020)
This paper has a twofold purpose. First, it aims at highlighting one difference (albeit in degree and not in kind) in how counterfactuals work in general history, on the one hand, and in history of the natural sciences, on the other hand. As we show, both in general history and in history of science good counterfactual narratives need to be plausible, where plausibility is construed as appropriate continuity of both the antecedent and the consequent of the counterfactual with what we know about the world. However, in general history it is often possible to imagine a consequent dramatically different from the actual historical development, and yet plausible; in history of science, due to plausibility concerns, imagining a consequent far removed from the results of actual science seems more complicated. The second aim of the paper is to assess whether and to what degree counterfactual histories of science can advance the cause of the so-called “contingency thesis,” namely, the claim that history of science might have followed a path leading to alternative, non-equivalent theories, as successful as the ones that we currently embrace. We distinguish various versions of the contingency thesis and argue that counterfactual histories of science support weak versions of the thesis.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Ian Hesketh;
(2016)
Counterfactuals and history: Contingency and convergence in histories of science and life
(/isis/citation/CBB385183310/)
Article
Joachim L. Dagg;
(2017)
How counterfactuals of Red-Queen theory shed light on science and its historiography
(/isis/citation/CBB638039701/)
Article
Joachim L. Dagg;
(2019)
Motives and merits of counterfactual histories of science
(/isis/citation/CBB710171767/)
Article
Luca Tambolo;
(2020)
An unappreciated merit of counterfactual histories of science
(/isis/citation/CBB925918030/)
Chapter
Emiliano Trizio;
(2016)
Scientific Realism and the Contingency of the History of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB273062090/)
Article
Catherine Greene;
(2021)
Historical Counterfactuals, Transition Periods, and the Constraints on Imagination
(/isis/citation/CBB731857942/)
Article
George R. McGhee;
(2016)
Can evolution be directional without being teleological?
(/isis/citation/CBB533310319/)
Chapter
JEAN PAUL VAN BENDEGEM;
(2016)
Contingency in Mathematics: Two Case Studies
(/isis/citation/CBB062227235/)
Chapter
HARRY COLLINS;
(2016)
Contingency and “The Art of the Soluble”
(/isis/citation/CBB551368183/)
Chapter
Jean-Luc Gangloff;
Catherine Allamel-Raffin;
(2016)
Some Remarks about the Definitions of Contingentism and Inevitabilism
(/isis/citation/CBB897286199/)
Chapter
JOSEPH ROUSE;
(2016)
Laws, Scientific Practice, and the Contingency/Inevitability Question
(/isis/citation/CBB925368184/)
Book
Lena Soler;
Trizio, Emiliano;
Andrew Pickering;
(2016)
Science as It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem
(/isis/citation/CBB703800560/)
Chapter
JEAN-MICHEL SALANSKIS;
(2016)
Freedom of Framework
(/isis/citation/CBB009052880/)
Chapter
LÉNA SOLER;
(2016)
Why Contingentists Should Not Care about the Inevitabilist Demand to “Put-Up-or-Shut-Up”: A Dialogic Reconstruction of the Argumentative Network
(/isis/citation/CBB353874033/)
Article
Leonore Fleming;
Robert Brandon;
(2015)
Why flying dogs are rare: A general theory of luck in evolutionary transitions
(/isis/citation/CBB161586470/)
Chapter
HASOK CHANG;
(2016)
Cultivating Contingency: A Case for Scientific Pluralism
(/isis/citation/CBB947555912/)
Chapter
Claire Petitmengin;
MICHEL BITBOL;
(2016)
The Science of Mind as It Could Have Been: About the Contingency of the (Quasi-) Disappearance of Introspection in Psychology
(/isis/citation/CBB067600231/)
Article
Thierry Hoquet;
(2021)
Pluralizing Darwin: Making Counter-Factual History of Science Significant
(/isis/citation/CBB581465929/)
Chapter
ANDREW PICKERING;
(2016)
Science, Contingency, and Ontology
(/isis/citation/CBB369018906/)
Chapter
MIEKE BOON;
(2016)
Contingency and Inevitability in Science: Instruments, Interfaces, and the Independent World
(/isis/citation/CBB739751914/)
Be the first to comment!