Abstract Summary
Alan Richardson (University of British Columbia) - Philosophers of science sometimes like to distinguish philosophical concern regarding science from (mere) historical concern regarding science by stressing the normativity of philosophy of science (and correspondingly the descriptive nature of history of science). This form of ahistorical logical or methodological normativity would scarcely be recognizable, however, to Ernst Mach or Ernst Cassirer. Here I will concentrate on the fundamental concepts of Cassirer’s philosophy of science as especially exemplified in his 1910 Substance and Function. I will argue that the normativity of philosophy of science cannot be, for Cassirer, disentangled from the history of science, precisely because philosophy of science is responsible for answering the question: in precisely what sense is science progressive? The normativity of Cassirer’s philosophy of science, thus, points the field toward the characteristic questions of the Enlightenment: the nature and limits of progress. Tensions in Cassirer’s account will point the way to some moves and themes in philosophy of science after Cassirer.
