Imre Lakatos’s conception of the history of science is explicated with the purpose of replying to criticism leveled against it by Thomas Kuhn, Ian Hacking, and others. Kuhn’s primary argument is that the historian’s internal-external distinction is methodologically superior to Lakatos’s distinction because it is “independent” of an analysis of rationality. That distinction, however, appears to be a normative one, harboring an implicit and unarticulated appeal to rationality, despite Kuhn’s claims to the contrary. Lakatos’s history, by contrast, is clearly the history of a normatively defined discipline; of science and not scientists and their activities. How such history can be written, the historiographic and critical tools available for its construction, and its importance as history are considered in detail. In an afterword, the prevalence of Lakatos’s treatment of history in philosophical discussion is indicated: a related approach is shown to arise in social contract theory.
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Winter 1993
December 01 1993
Lakatos’s “Internal History” as Historiography
Eric Palmer
Eric Palmer
University of Kentucky
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Eric Palmer
University of Kentucky
Online ISSN: 1530-9274
Print ISSN: 1063-6145
©1993 The University of Chicago. All rights
reserved.
1993
The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Perspectives on Science (1993) 1 (4): 603–626.
Citation
Eric Palmer; Lakatos’s “Internal History” as Historiography. Perspectives on Science 1993; 1 (4): 603–626. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00448
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