HISTORICAL PRAGMATICS BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editor ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University Editorial Advisory Board THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SAHOTRA SARKAR, Dibner Institute, M.l. T SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. W ARTOFSKY, Baruch College of the City University of New York VOLUME 155 ROBERT E. BUTTS Department of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario HISTORICAL PRAGMATICS Philosophical Essays SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-481-4329-0 ISBN 978-94-015-8188-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8188-2 Ali Rights Reserved © 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1993 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. PREFACE For 35 years, the critical and creative writings of Robert E. Butts have been a notable and welcome part of European and North American philosophy. A few years ago, James Robert Brown and Jiirgen Mittelstrass feted Professor Butts with a volume entitled An Intimate Relation (Boston Studies vol. 116, 1989), essays by twenty-six philosophers and historians of the sciences. And that joining of philosophers and historians was impressive evidence of the 'intimate relation' between historical illumination and philosophical understanding which is characteristic of Butts throughout his work. Not alone, Butts has been, and is, one of this generation's most incisive thinkers, devoted to responsible textual scholarship and equally responsible imaginative interpretation. Brown and Mittelstrass said that "throughout his writings, science, its philosophy, and its history have been treated as a seamless web", and I would add only that philosophy per se is a part of the web too. Here in this book before us are the results, a lovely collection from the work of Robert Butts, who is for so many of his colleagues, students and readers, Mr. HPS, the model philosophical historian and historical philosopher of the sciences. July 1993 Robert S. Cohen Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University TABLE OF CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE IX INTRODUCTION Xl PART I EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 1. Some tactics in Galileo's propaganda for the mathematization of scientific experience 3 2. Leibniz on choosing between rival scientific hypotheses 33 PRAGMATIC EPISODE 1 53 3. Philosophers as professional relativists 55 PART II KANT'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 65 4. Kant's schemata as semantical rules 67 5. The methodological structure of Kant's metaphysics of science 79 6. Teleology and scientific method in Kant's Critique of Judgment 115 7. The grammar of reason: Hamann's challenge to Kant l33 PRAGMATIC EPISODE 2 169 8. Metaphysics, methodology and the pragmatic unity of the sciences 171 PART III WHEWELL AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 187 9. Necessary truth in Whewell's theory of science 189 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 10. Whewell's logic of induction 235 11. Consilience of inductions and the problem of conceptual change in science 269 12. Whewell on Newton's rules of philosophizing 293 13. 'A purely scientific temper': Victorian expressions of the ideal of an autonomous science 313 BffiLlOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED 339 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 353 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The following abbreviations are used in references to standard works. Volume numbers are indicated by Roman, page numbers by Arabic numerals. Translations from Kant's German were made by R.E. Butts, except where English language translations are cited below. In these cases, the translations are drawn from the works cited, though occasionally with modifications. A - Kant, Immanuel. (1781) Kritik der rein en Vernunft, Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith (1929) as Critique of pure reason, New York: Macmillan. Ak - Kant, Immanuel. (1900- ) Gesammelte Schriften, 27 + vols., Berlin: de Gruyter and predecessors. B - Kant, Immanuel. (1787) Kritik der rein en Vernunft, 2nd ed., Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith (1929) as Critique of pure reason, New York: Macmillan. KRV - Used for reference to A and B indifferently. KU - Kant, Immanuel. (1790) Kritik der Urteilskraft, reprinted in Ak V as edited by Wilhelm Windelband. Translated by James Creed Meredith (1952) as Critique of judgment, Oxford: Clarendon Press. MAN - Kant, Immanuel. (1786) Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft, reprinted in Ak IV as edited by Alois Hofler. Translated by James Ellington (1970) as Metaphysical foundations of natural science, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. First Intro - Kant, Immanuel. (1942) "Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft," in Ak XX, Gerhard Lehmann, ed. Translated by James Haden (1965) as First introduction to the critique ofj udgment, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. IX x BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE PRO - Kant, Immanuel. (1783) Prolegomena zu einer jeden kUnftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten kannen, reprinted in Ak IV as edited by Benno Erdmann. Translated by Lewis White Beck (1950) as Prolegomena to any future metaphysics. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Other works will be cited by the last name of the author and date of publication. Full bibliographic data for other works may be found in the bibliography at the back of this book.