Developments in the Historiography of Science and Appreciation of “Science and Value” Problem

Document Type : Research/Original/Reqular Article

Author

Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

In the last few decades, philosophers of science have paid much more attention to the question of the role of values in scientific theories. Before that, the prevailing view drew a sharp distinction between the scopes of science and value. Specifically, in the second part of 20th century, allegiance to the value-free ideal of science was common, which admitts only epistemic values a role in epistemic evaluation of scientific theories. In this paper, sketching a brief history of the development of the literature of “science and value”, we propose that one of the important factors contributing to raising awareness to the roles of values in science is the developments in the historiography of science, in particular, flourishing of externalist attitudes to history of science, emphasis on using accurate empirical data, and avoiding anachronistic fallacies in historical narratives. Finally, we will focus on the fact that better understanding of the role of values in science puts some new questions before the historian of science, and the concepts developed in discussion of the relationship between science and value can provide a new framework to the historian of science and, in this way, may affect theories and methods of historiography of science.

Keywords

References

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