As a discipline of its own, the philosophy of science can be traced back to the founding of its academic journals, some of which go back to the first half of the twentieth century. While the discipline has been the object of many historical studies, notably focusing on specific schools or major figures of the field, little work has focused on the journals themselves. Here, we investigate contemporary philosophy of science by means of computational text-mining approaches: we apply topic-modeling algorithms (...) to eight major philosophy of science journals, from the 1930s up until 2017. Based on the full-text content of some 15,897 articles, we identified 25 research themes and 8 thematic clusters that show how the research agenda of the philosophy of science has changed in its content over the course of the last eight decades, up to the philosophy of science we now know. We also show how each one of the journals contributed in its own way to this thematic evolution. (shrink)

This article presents a case study from the history of cardiology, namely, the development towards the acceptance of the coronary theory of angina pectoris. I show that the arguments which were considered decisive against the theory were not answered at the time the theory was accepted. I also point out that the experimental and practical success of the theory cannot be used to support the initial choice because, in the subsequent development, the field researchers became preoccupied with new questions and (...) problems. In spite of this, there is a sense in which the field of angina research has progressed, but it remains a challenge to exactly characterise in what sense this is the case. (shrink)

In april 1872, with the caisson at a depth of seventy-odd feet and still no bedrock, two men died. The strain for Roebling was nearly unbearable, as his wife later said. On May 18, a third man died, and that same day Roebling made the most difficult and courageous decision of the project. Staking everything — the success of the bridge, his reputation, his career - he ordered a halt. The New York tower, he had concluded, could stand where it (...) was, at a depth of 78 feet 6 inches, not on bedrock, but on “hardpack” sand. From examinations of the strata he had determined to his own satisfaction that no movement had occured at the level since the time of deposit millions of years in the geologic past; so, he said, it was “good enough to found upon”. (shrink)

The chief objections raised by Doppelt (this issue, "The Philosophical Requirements for an Adequate Conception of Scientific Rationality") against my views fall into three groups: ones having to do with my concept of "success" (that I have provided no analysis of it, and that therefore my concept of "reason" in science is likewise unexplained; that it requires appeal to some universal criterion); ones having to do with the role of standards or criteria in science (how they are related to substantive (...) beliefs; the possibility of rejecting them); and ones purporting to show that I have not escaped relativism (underdetermination of beliefs; problem of loss in scientific change). I reply to each of these groups of criticisms in turn, concluding with some remarks on the status and validity of the requirements he lays down for any account of scientific rationality. (shrink)

Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)